Ahhhhhhh, I Fink I See the Light

You know how I've been saying that something doesn' quite meet the eye about this Paulson bailout proposal? I mean, I keep hearing that not one single economist can be found who thinks this is the way to unfreeze credit, and not one person can be found who likes it. So why would BushCo propose it, I wondered, wondered I.

I heard something on Hardball today that may answer this question. One of Squeeky's guests said that Wall Street would "say" to Obama: "You're proposing all this new spending (healthcare, infrastructure, college loans, renewable energy development, etc.). Well, you can have that, or you can have this (bailout). Which will it be?"

That, Dear Readers, may be the missing piece of the puzzle. THAT would explain why a radically "free" market administration in its waning days would intervene in a market to the tune of $700 Billion.

The good news is that I also understand that Obama has seen that little move coming and inserted into the measure a clause that sticks Wall Street with any difference between the bailout amount and the sum earned for the taxpayers when these bundled "assets" are sold. The trick will be to sell them before the end of Obama's first term, or make recouping the loss a visible part of his re-election bid four years from now.

Have I mentioned? Republicans need to man up and admit that 30 years of Reaganomics got us where we are today, and McCain and his finance adviser Gramm were driving that truck.

Regarding the Bailout . . .

Thanks to the fabulous Dependable Renegade

Palin Failin'

I'm fairly sure that Palin will be finding it in her heart to step down between now and the VP debate. I could be wrong, God knows. Many people have wrongly underestimated the depth of Republican incompetence and stupidity--with consequences that we're doomed to endure for the foreseeable. But still.

What, she's going to debate Joe Biden? If she does and he plays it as he should--straight, no condenscion, no meanness, simply presidentially--she's DOA and so is what's left of McNasty after last night's debate.

If she doesn't show for the debate, she's going to be looking at quite a consolation prize. She'll very likely depart for family reasons, which means that her dignity at least will not be shredded for all eternity. She'll also have the undying gratitude of the party, and quite likely the promise of a slot in a future senatorial campaign--very lucrative, that, as her predecessor's indictment demonstrates. But she'll almost surely also take home a couple million bucks from some source untraceable to the campaign.

If you were Sarah Palin, what would you do?

For McCain, either option is suicide, but he should have figured that out before he even thought about naming her. He deserves to lose for that reason alone. The idea of putting her a heartbeat from launch code shows such gaping contempt for the country's wellbeing that it's one step from treason.

If she leaves, he can save what's left of his face after last week's bizarre, erratic, not to say unhinged performance. If she doesn't, man oh man, he's going to reap the whirlwind of Americans' wrath. In that scenario, let's just hope he reaps it before we are forced to reap any more bitter fruits of Republican "governance."

I think she's out of here, and I hope she drags Rove's carrion-fed brain with her.

Paul Newman

People just don't come any better.

What an enduring model of authentic greatness he is.

Of course I'll miss his breath-taking good looks, but I'll miss his classy approach to living even more.

Thank you, Paul. I'll be on the lookout for a slam-bang sunset.

Phil Gramm, Wendy Gramm, Enron, Energy Crisis, and CA

In December 2001, Public Citizen, the respected independent nonprofit research group, published this report on the key roles played by McCain's finance czar, Senator Phil Gramm and his wife, Enron board member Wendy, in the Enron energy swindle that caused California's devastating energy crisis in the first half of 2001.
Read this readable but detailed indictment of Bush, Enron, the Gramms, and the enabling GOP of deregulating the state wholesale energy industry and the commodities trading market.

Then think about what's happening today and which party is likelier to have your and your children's interests in mind.

Paranoid Pastures, Part II

At the moment, it looks like the Republicans in Congress, led by Boehner, are positioning to make it look as if McCain rode in on his white horse and brokered a deal that no other mortal could broker. We all know that's BS, but that's the McCain way. Ever since he took the credit for breaking a filibuster on Bush's judicial packing, he's been racing to upstage everyone else in Washington at every opportunity. Why should we expect him to do anything decent now?

So as it stands, if a consensus measure emerges, the Republicans will claim McCain did it. If a consensus measure fails, the Republicans will clain the Democrats did it. Which will be tricky, since the hardcore opposition is coming from the core de-regulator, free market witchdoctors. They're all GOP. We'll see.

We have a broken dollar, a crashing market, the all-time petroleum crisis, global warming, with dire predictions of global starvation and global population shifts, and a nation mortgaged to the tune of $11 Trillion--which, to my mind, means that Bush's proposed $1 T bailout is throwing more borrowed money at the root of the crisis, which is too much borrowed money. We also have home values tanking just as the boomers are retiring and more than ever dependent on home values to finance assisted living and long-term care, and 3/5ths of retirees financially unprepared to retire, even as jobs are flowing out of this economy like blood out of a sliced artery. That's a whole other crisis we haven't even begun to address. Think riots in the streets.

McCain's 1,000-page medical file suggests that his days are numbered, and yet it is against that scenario that he's chosen to bring Palin one heartbeat from launch code.

Does that make sense to anybody? Well, besides the Bush Davidians, I mean.

No. It doesn't. So maybe Palin is about more than galvanizing the Christianist fascist theocrats. Maybe her presence on the ticket, is also, or will turn out to be, yet another plank in a coup d'etat platform.

It works like this.

Even Bush knows that he personally cannot risk a Palin presidency. Every Republican in Washington knows the same thing. No one with even remote awareness of and concern for the nation's monumental problems can seriously contemplate Palin at the wheel.

At the same time, the GOP/Wall Street Elite (to risk redundancy)literally cannot afford to see an Obama presidency, either. Their wealth depends on continuing de-regulation and tax cuts for the top 5%, and on the kinds of fraud and piracy that gave us $8 Billion cash pallets in Iraq, and no accounting. Nor did they consolidate power in the Executive in order to give it to a Democrat. Do the math.

It therefore strikes me as plausible that either outcome could trigger exactly the kind of Seize the Moment moment that the Christo-Fascists have been praying for.

Now comes the question posed by reader Morning Angel, in her comment to my last post: "Can we allow the deconstruction of democracy altogether?"

Well.

One, who will lead the revolution?

Two, for the 30 years we've all been pretending that the Christo-Fascists are a lunatic fringe, they've been busily organizing our military academies and our active forces, creating dozens of happy little battalions convinced that Bush Himself is the Will of God. And then there's Blackwater, and hundreds of thousands of indoctrinated police, not to mention the folks at "Justice" and in the FBI and the CIA. Or the radically expanded domestic espionage tentacles of Das Homeland Security.

Get my drift?

Hang on. It really could be a very bumpy ride.

Or I could just be a certifiable, paranoid, dotty old Chi.

What's Bush's Plan B Win?

This is the strangest political week I've ever seen.

If nothing you know adequately explains what you're being told, then it's something else, right?

Item: McCain's suspending his campaign today makes no sense on its face. He needs to campaign even harder now that he's sliding in the polls. Besides, he, like Obama, can do what he needs to in the Senate by phone and by public statement. His presence in DC is not needed unless the vote is perilously close--and it won't be. Both parties are desperate to fully share responsibility for this vote.

So what's going on? Is he setting up some kind of October Surprise, either for himself or for Palin, or is he simply exhausted? It would seem so. The mistakes are raining down. Is he using the financial crisis as a cover for suspending so that he can rest? Or does he need to pow-wow about what the hell to do with Palin, who looks more like an albatross every day? Or. . .what?

Item: Is this whole financial catastrophe perhaps not what it seems to be at all? I myself do not really believe that all of Wall Street and all the banks in the USA will be in all tha big a hurry to shoot each other and die, regardless of what we're told. In fact, the more Bush says so, the LESS I believe it. Besides, I know there are other alternatives for handling the crisis than the $1 Trillion give-away.

I think that we're not being told the truth at all, and I think Congress thinks so, too. I can tell because Bush's lips are moving. I can tell because tonight he looked EXACTLY like he looked when he was explaining that Saddam had WMD, only older. He had that wooden Howdy Doody in a Suit look, his eyes like black beads starting out of his head as he read his teleprompter.

The only problem with that theory is Bernacke. But then, on the other hand, I don't have any reason to believe he can't be co-opted.

So where we are now is in a wait-and-see. If the bailout (it's a bailout, not a rescue)takes more time than BushCo says we can afford to take and yet the world doesn't end afer all, what would that mean? What will happen if Congress calls Bush's bluff?

Might a counter-move on Congress' part become -- or have been strategized all along as -- the rationale that Bush will use to suspend the national election?

It's an extreme supposition. But to be fair to myself, plenty of wiser people have observed Bush's massive encroachments on the Constitution and the separation of powers over his terms in the White House and speculated that he and Cheney are not likely to turn the massive powers he's grabbed for the Executive over to a Democrat. But in order to pull off the last move in a collosal shock doctrine coup, he would require a huge, huge crisis. And since evidently he couldn't nuke Iran in time, are the money problems of his rich Wall Street friends a sufficiently plausible disaster whether they are real or conjured?

I don't know, but something isn't right. I still haven't heard a plausible explanation for why the Bushies waited until the 11th hour to declare a crisis, when they knew a long time ago that it was coming. I think it was to stampede Congress, but for that to make full sense, the Bushies would have to have a Plan B in mind, an an alernative "win" in case Congress balked. So what's that alternative win?

That's what we're waiting to find out, isn't it?

What's Happening? Take a Look

Simply a must-read from Salon's Glenn Greenwald, printed here in full. GO TO THE ORIGINAL TO FOLLOW HIS IMPORTANT LINKS.

Please, for your own sake, read it all. If you can't, then at least read the parts in bold type here. Especially see this from the last paragraph. It's a direct quote from the plan Bush presented to Congress Friday of this week: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." [Sec. 8]


OK. Greenwald's superb piece begins here:

The complete (though ever-changing) elite consensus over the financial collapse [updated version]

FIRST, THERE'S:

John Diamond, USA Today, February 4, 2004 -- "A desert mirage: How U.S. misjudged Iraq's arsenal":

The assertion that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons -- and the ability to use them against his neighbors and even the United States -- was expressed in an Oct. 1, 2002, document called a National Intelligence Estimate. The estimate didn't trigger President Bush's determination to oust Saddam. But it weighed heavily on members of Congress as they decided to authorize force against Iraq, and it was central to Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council a year ago this week. . . .

The Bush and Clinton administrations, foreign intelligence services, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress all took it as a given that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons.

THEN THERE'S:

Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, August 11, 2007 --"How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won":

For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise. . . .

McConnell won the fight, extracting a key concession despite the misgivings of Democratic negotiators. Congressional, administration and intelligence officials last week described the events leading up to the approval of this surveillance, including a remarkable series of confrontations that ended with McConnell and the White House outmaneuvering the Democratic-controlled Congress, partly by capitalizing on fresh reports of a growing terrorism threat.

"We had a forcing function," a senior administration official said, referring to the intelligence community's public report last month that said al-Qaeda poses a growing threat to the United States and to lawmakers' desire to leave town in August. . . .

A critical moment for the Democrats came on July 24, when McConnell met in a closed session with senators from both parties to ask for urgent approval of a slimmed-down version of his bill. Armed with new details about terrorist activity and an alarming decline in U.S. eavesdropping capabilities, he argued that Congress had days, not weeks, to act.

"Everybody who heard him speak recognized the absolute, compelling necessity to move," Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), vice chairman of the intelligence panel, said later of the closed session.

Democrats agreed. As delivered by McConnell, the warnings were seen as fully credible. "He's pushing this because he thinks we're in a high-threat environment," the senior aide said. . . .McConnell deemed [the Democratic draft's] fine print unacceptable, however, and in the end, it was the Republican bill, a near-copy of his proposal, that passed both chambers of Congress.

AND NOW THERE'S:

David Herszenhorn, New York Times, today, "Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings":,

It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.

Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"When you listened to him describe it you gulped," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program "Good Morning America," the congressional leaders were told "that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally."

Mr. Schumer added, "History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment."

When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as "somber," Mr. Dodd cut in. "Somber doesn't begin to justify the words," he said. "We have never heard language like this."

"What you heard last evening," he added, "is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together quickly."

Leave aside for the moment whether this gargantuan nationalization/bailout scheme is "necessary" in some utilitarian sense. One doesn't have to be an economics expert in order for several facts to be crystal clear:

First, the fact that Democrats are on board with this scheme means absolutely nothing. When it comes to things the Bush administration wants, Congressional Democrats don't say "no" to anything. They say "yes" to everything. That's what they're for.

They say "yes" regardless of whether they understand what they're endorsing. They say "yes" regardless of whether they've been told even the most basic facts about what they're being told to endorse. They say "yes" anytime doing so is politically less risky than saying "no," which is essentially always and is certainly the case here. They say "yes" whenever the political establishment -- meaning establishment media outlets and the corporate class that funds them -- wants them to say "yes," which is the case here. And they say "yes" with particular speed and eagerness when told to do so by the Serious Trans-Partisan Republican Experts like Hank Paulson and Ben Bernake (or Mike McConnell and Robert Gates and, before them, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell).

So nothing could be less reassuring or more meaningless than the fact that the Democratic leadership has announced that what they heard scared them so much that they are certain all of this is necessary -- whatever "all this" might be (and does anyone think that they know what "this" even is?). It may be "necessary" or may not be, but the fact that Congressional Democrats are saying this is irrelevant, since they would not have done anything else -- they're incapable of doing anything else -- other than giving their stamp of approval when they're told to.

Second, whatever else is true, the events of the last week are the most momentous events of the Bush era in terms of defining what kind of country we are and how we function -- and before this week, the last eight years have been quite momentous, so that is saying a lot. Again, regardless of whether this nationalization/bailout scheme is "necessary" or makes utilitarian sense, it is a crime of the highest order -- not a "crime" in the legal sense but in a more meaningful sense.

What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

More amazingly, they're free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they're just "forced" to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? The mere fact that shareholders might lose their stake going forward doesn't resolve that concern; why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn't support walk away with their gains? This is "redistribution of wealth" and "government takeover of industry" on the grandest scale imaginable -- the buzzphrases that have been thrown around for decades to represent all that is evil and bad in the world. That's all this is; it's not an "investment" by the Government in any real sense but just a magical transfer of losses away from those who are responsible for these losses to those who aren't.

And all of this was both foreseeable as well as foreseen -- see the 2002 grave warnings from Warren Buffett on pages 14-15 of his shareholders letter (.pdf), among many other things -- and it's also happened before, when the Federal Government bailed out the S&L industry that (with John McCain's help) was able to gamble recklessly and then force the country to protect them from their losses. The people who did this have no fear of anything -- they completely lack the kind of healthy fear that impedes reckless behavior -- because they know how our Government works and that they control it and thus believe that their capacity to suffer is limited in the extreme. And they're right about that.

What's most vital to underscore is that the beneficiaries of this week's extraordinary Government schemes aren't just the coincidental recipients of largesse due to some random stroke of good luck. The people on whose behalf these schemes are being implemented -- the true beneficiaries -- are the very same people who have been running and owning our Government -- both parties -- for decades, which is why they have been able to do what they've been doing without interference. They were able to gamble without limit because they control the Government, and now they're having others bear the brunt of their collapse for the same reason -- because the Government is largely run for their benefit.

If there is any "pitchfork moment" -- an episode that understandably would send people into the streets in mass outrage -- it would be this. Nobody really even seems to know how much of these losses "the Government" -- meaning working people who had no part in the profits from these transactions -- is undertaking virtually overnight but it's at least a trillion dollars, an amount so vast it's hard to comprehend, let alone analyze in terms of consequences. The transactions are way too complex even for the most sophisticated financial analysts to understand, let alone value. Whatever else is true, generations of Americans are almost certainly going to be severely burdened in untold ways by the events of the last week -- ones that have been carried out largely without any debate and mostly in secret.

Third, what's probably most amazing of all is the contrast between how gargantuan all of this is and the complete absence of debate or disagreement over what's taking place. It's not just that, as usual, Democrats and Republicans are embracing the same core premises ("this is regrettable but necessary"). It's that there's almost no real discussion of what happened, who is responsible, and what the consequences are. It's basically as though the elite class is getting together and discussing this all in whispers, coordinating their views, and releasing just enough information to keep the stupid masses content and calm.

Can anyone point to any discussion of what the implications are for having the Federal Government seize control of the largest and most powerful insurance company in the country, as well as virtually the entire mortgage industry and other key swaths of financial services? Haven't we heard all these years that national health care was an extremely risky and dangerous undertaking because of what happens when the Federal Government gets too involved in an industry? What happened in the last month dwarfs all of that by many magnitudes.

The Treasury Secretary is dictating to these companies how they should be run and who should run them. The Federal Government now controls what were -- up until last month -- vast private assets. These are extreme -- truly radical -- changes to how our society functions. Does anyone have any disagreement with any of it or is anyone alarmed by what the consequences are -- not the economic consequences but the consequences of so radically changing how things function so fundamentally and so quickly?

Other countries are debating it. The headline in the largest Brazilian newspaper this week was: "Capitalist Socialism??" and articles all week have questioned -- with alarm -- whether what the U.S. Government did has just radically and permanently altered the world economic system and ushered in some perverse form of "socialism" where industries are nationalized and massive debt imposed on workers in order to protect the wealthiest. If Latin America is shocked at the degree of nationalization and government-mandated transfer of wealth, that is a pretty compelling reflection of how extreme -- unprecedented -- it all is.

But there's virtually no discussion of that in America's dominant media outlets. All one hears is that everything that is happening is necessary to save us all from economic doom. And what's most amazing about that is that the Natural, Unchallenged Consensus That Nobody Questions can shift drastically in a matter of days and still nobody questions anything. This is what Atrios observed as I was writing this post:

It's fascinating to watch how easily consensus is manufactured. A few days ago elite opinion seemed to be cheering Paulson's "no bailout" line, and now they're cheering a trillion bucks thrown down the crapper. All the Very Serious People will spend their days coming up with their pony plans, oblivious to the fact that the pony plan is not an option. The Bush administration's plan is the option.
The way it works is that Bush officials decree how things will be, and then everyone -- from Congressional Democrats to the Serious Pundits -- jump uncritically and obediently on board, even if they were on board with the complete opposite approach just days earlier, and then all real dissent vanishes. That's how the country in general works. As Atrios says: "We've seen this game played before."

I don't pretend to know anywhere near enough -- in terms of either raw information or expertise -- in order to opine on the necessity or lack thereof of The Latest Plan in terms of whether the alternatives are worse. But what I do know is that an injustice so grave and extreme that it defies words is taking place; that the greatest beneficiaries are those who are most culpable; and that the same hopelessly broken and deeply rotted institutions and elite class that gave rise to all of this (and so much more) are the very ones that are -- yet again -- being blindly entrusted to solve this.

UPDATE: Here is the current draft for the latest plan. It's elegantly simple. The three key provisions: (1) The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion of any mortgage-related assets (so he can just transfer that amount to any corporations in exchange for their worthless or severely crippled "assets") [Sec. 6]; (2) The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme [Sec. 10]; and (3) best of all: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." [Sec. 8]
Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.

Apart from the most massive wealth transfer since the Spanish conquered Mexico, these are the last stages in how America becomes a fascist nation.

Cafferty: "Is This Bailout a Good Idea?"

My answer:

It’s a moot point. This is the most massive wealth transfer in history. Unless the Carlyle Group and other big boys are fenced off from foisting the bad loans off onto us (again) and buying up the good ones for a song; unless taxpayers demand a hefty rate of interest and a corruption/dereliction penalty fee; unless there is a vigorous re-payment schedule; and unless the corrupt SOB CEOs who run these places are forbidden to take one nickel’s profit, this is just Shock Doctrine economics. This is GOP-Milton Friedman-Bush-Cheney standard operating procedure, just on a bigger scale than we’re used to. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest of us.

Pelosi actually said something useful: How come their profit is privatized but their debt is not? Ask McCain. It's the Republican Way.

$1 Trillion MORE? I Have So Many Questions

How is it that we can afford to bail out incomprehensible corruption, negligence, and incompetence but we can't afford Medicare or Social Security? Oh. Wait. I know. We can't afford Medicare or Social Security because we bailed out incomprehensibly corrupt corporations.

How is it that we can afford to bail out these bastards but not fix our streets, electrical grid, highways bridges, subways, reservoirs, ports, and ship channels? Oh. Wait. See above.

When China and a "nuclear Iran and an increasingly aggressive Russia" (Wolf Blitzer) rattle their swords, how will we pay to raise an army, protect our country, equip our soldiers, heal our veterans, and provide GI bills now that we've just loaded our kids with another $1 Trillion in debt? Oh. Wait. See above.

How is it that bailing out incomprehensible corruption, negligence, and incompetence isn't pork, but building research centers and highways is pork? Oh. Wait. It depends on who gets it.

How can we afford to educate our kids from K through college? Oh. Wait. We can't.

How can we afford to subsidize a brand new renewable energy development program. Oh. Wait. We can't.

You watch. McPalin will take this Republican-engineered financial meltdown--AKA this flushing of our national treasure into the coffers of wealthy, crooked and incompetent Republican bastards like those who own the Carlyle Group--will be alchemized into yet another reason why Obama is a disaster waiting to happen.

This is pure Shock Doctrine.

Incalculable Fraud, Incalculable Wealth Transfer

Isn’t Bush's proposed radical new economic plan simply a massive wealth transfer from you and yours truly to the super-wealthy?

Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing Naomi Wolfe warned us about in The Shock Doctrine—minus the fighter jets and tanks (at least so far)?

Shouldn’t every American be in the streets demanding that the CEOs, boards, and senior officers of these failed companies forfeit ANY profit?

Shouldn’t we demand that the taxpayer be repaid with vigorous interest and levy a penalty fee?

Shouldn’t there be immediate prohibitions against these guys just dumping the bad loans on Fannie and Freddy (us) and skimming the goods ones at bargain-basement rates?

This is an incalculable fraud on all who invested in these outfits, and an incalculable wealth transfer, and it’s all being pulled off with perfect insouciance. I’m speechless.

Elaine Chao, Wendy Gramm

Ooops. Senior moment. Contrary to what I said yesterday, Elaine Chao isn't the wife of Republican Senator Phil Gramm.

Phil Gramm's wife Wendy, however, was on the board of Enron. Which should tell you something about the Gramms' position on government regulation. In case the fact that Phil wrote the law that deregulated investment banking doesn't tell you something.

Chao, the rapidly anti-labor current Republican Secretary of Labor, is the wife of Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.

McConnell is the ranking Republican in this Senate and has a 100% pro-business (anti-regulation) record from the US Chamber of Commerce. Which should tell you how he feels about regulating Wall Street.

So how anybody can think that McCain is going to make changes in Washington--especially in regulating corporate America--is way past me. His chief economic advisor remains Phil Gramm.

Here's what's going down: Even as he and Palin are stumping this promise, you can be sure his aides are on the phone to Wall Street saying, "Pay no attention. This is just political rhetoric to get him in office. You know John, he'll take care of ya!"

Who Could Make This Up?

This is a completely incredible week.

Thanks to the sustained, core, much-ballyhoo'd Republican "free" market, de-regulation economic policy, the stock market--that would be us, you and me--has lost over $1 Trillion Dollars, yet 45% of Americans are still supporting McPalin.

McCain, whose economic advisor is de-regulation architect Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm (whose wife is our Secy of Labor, by the way), is declaring himself a regulator (for the first time in 30 years), and former Hillary supporter Lady Lynne Rothschild (yes, that Rothschild, the baroness) has left the Democrats in a huff because that Obama--get that, Obama--is "an elitist."

Right. New Deal advocate Obama is an elitist, and 9-houses-and-a-jet McPalin is a feminist ethics professor and pro-gay rights market regulator.

Who could make this stuff up?

If I weren't numb with anxiety about our retirement income and the prospects for a worldwide crash, I would be in hysterics. As it is, I'm sick at my stomach.

Demand the Debate We Deserve

DEMAND THE DEBATE WE DESERVE

"The Democratically Controlled Congress"? Puh-Leeze!

The "Democratically controlled Congress." How often do we hear that as an indictment of this failure or that over the last four years? What isn't said, ever, by media whores like Wolf Blitzer and Alan Greenspan's wife, Andrea Mitchell, or by GOP hacks like that genius of corporate management, Carly Fiorina, is this: While the Democrats were in power in both the Senate and the House, (1) there was not a veto-proof majority. No matter who controlled what, the Democrats could not -- repeat, could not -- overcome the will of the GOP. (2) Senator Lieberman, who voted WITH the GOP 90% of the time, simply weakened the power of the Democrats, and did so consistently from the time Bush took power.

Do NOT confuse a stalemate with capitulation on the part of the Democrats. When I see capitulation--as now, with Pelosi-Reed's craven support for a modified offshore drilling bill, and earlier, with Obama's refusal to stand up to the telecoms who enabled Bush's ILLEGAL domestic spying, I'll say so. I'm not operating under any illusions that Democrats are perfect.

Whatever they are, they aren't the originators of Neocon deregulation. That began with Uncle Ronnie, and has hit a banana peel under W. That's core Republican ideology, and the past and the coming administrations will sustain deregulation because investment bankers are part of their base.

What we've seen with Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros., Fannie May, Freddie Mac, and AIG, the underlying wave of predatory lending practices and the resulting home foreclosure crisis; what we've seen with the plunging value of the dollar; what we've seen with 600,000 job losses just since January; what we've seen with eroded wages and busted unionization efforts (e.g., Wal-Mart); exploited miners and deregulated mines; what we've seen with tax breaks for oil and for corporations that export American jobs--ALL THIS IS CORE REPUBLICAN NEO-CON IDEOLOGY APPLIED TO REAL LIFE.

Did I make that up?

So: Given THAT evidence, anyone who still votes for McCain--the Savings and Loan senator who has consistently supported all this, who still, today, says he thinks the economy is "sound"; who takes his economics advice from the catastrophic Neo-Con Senator Phil Gramm; who has confessed to knowing nothing about economics and therefore has promised to continue Bush economics, is an idiot. An unquestionable, certifiable, Bush Davidian, Kool-Aid drinking, way below Zero moron.

If Americans want a better world, here at home and abroad, we'd better elect Obama and give Democrats a majority in both houses of Congress.

Palin OK'd Fees for Post-Rape Medical Exams

From the Huffington Post:

Despite denials by the Palin campaign, new evidence proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence.

Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online.

Under Sarah Palin's administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today earlier this week that the GOP vice presidential nominee "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test...To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Palin, as mayor, fired police chief Irl Stambaugh and replaced him with Charlie Fannon, who with Palin's knowledge, slashed the budget for the exams and began charging the city's victims of sexual assault. The city budget documents demonstrate Palin read and signed off on the new budget. A year later, alarmed Alaska lawmakers passed legislation outlawing the practice.

And to think, Biden withdrew from his first presidential campaign for this:

". . . he ended his presidential campaign on September 23, 1987 after being accused of plagiarism. Though he had correctly credited the original author in all speeches but one, the one where he failed to make mention of the originator was caught on video."

We've come some distance, haven't we? Unfortunately, the direction is backwards.

Bush: Just Makin' Hay While the Sun Shines

From the NY Times:

With White House Push, U.S. Arms Sales Jump
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: September 13, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to rearm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies.

From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005.

The trend, which started in 2006, is most pronounced in the Middle East, but it reaches into northern Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and even Canada, through dozens of deals that senior Bush administration officials say they are confident will both tighten military alliances and combat terrorism.

“This is not about being gunrunners,” said Bruce S. Lemkin, the Air Force deputy under secretary who is helping to coordinate many of the biggest sales. “This is about building a more secure world.”

Yeah? And how's that workin' for ya?

This couldn't possibly have anything to do with The Carlyle Group, of which the Bush family is the a very happy primary beneficiary.

Nah. Neither does the price of gas.

America, get a clue.

To help you out, here's a little bit of backstory you should know:

"An agreement was struck with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence "backed" the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. In November 2000 Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil. It was his arrogance that was a threat -- to the dollar; his lack of any military might was never a threat. At the first cabinet meeting with the new administration in 2001, as reported by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, the major topic was how to get rid of Saddam Hussein--[ii]

"Saddam was linked to al Qaeda – sovereign Iraq was invaded –Joe Wilson’s honest report was dismissed, his wife, Valerie Plame’s identity was revealed – and so the rest of the story goes. . . .

"The ‘liberators’ fight hard for the ‘new democracy’. The ‘new democracy’ had become the place where arms dealers line their pockets. War is good for business. Boardrooms are filled with delighted stockholders. Profits are rolling in. The bin Laden owned Carlyle Group, not content with making money out of arms, proposes to use its connections to get in other deals. It wants ‘to help manage’ up to $1 billion of the funds collected from the reparations and other claims to create an entity, initially funded by $2 billion in Kuwaiti government money, that would take control of any funds collected from Iraq [iii].

"Indeed, the bin Laden owned Carlyle group fares well when it comes to death and destruction. As the Bush administration was supplying Israel with munitions to massacre the Lebanese men, women, and children, and as the United Nations was ordered by the U.S. to allow the destruction of a nation to continue, the Carlyle Group was ready to invest in Lebanon’s ruins – another one of Mr. Bush’s ‘new democracies’.[iv]

"Was it all ‘bad intelligence’? Today we have the weapons manufacturers supplying the intelligence. An ad taken out by Lockheed Martin last year looking for intelligence recruits reads: "on substantive intelligence matters involving terrorist groups and networks . . . Centcom experience is a plus," [v]. Raytheon, the other large defense contractor, is also supplying intelligence – to the point that corporate America, the weapons manufacturers, are capable of taking us to war. And war they want. Their stocks have gone through the roof – though the Iraqis had their roofs taken away with bombs and poverty.

"The next ‘threat’ on the list is Iran. In 1999 Iran had stated that it plans to sell its oil in Euro currency (Du Boff 1)[vi] as the sanctions had made it impossible for Iran to trade in dollars. (In 2001, Venezuela's ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from the CIA). Iran has started selling its oil in other currencies - Japan had to pay for its shipment in Yen.

"Iran has been the target of false allegations and ‘bad intelligence’ for the sole purpose of an attack which would profit corporate America, the military industrial complex, and their cohorts in the Middle East, with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon supplying intelligence[vii].

"Even as the IAEA “inspectors have protested to the US government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest", and that Iran had not enriched uranium to weapons grade[viii], the warmongering media here continues to make accusations about Iran. Iran is being accused of killing Americans in Iraq, supplying weapons, and in short, of being the biggest threat to the U.S. No doubt many employees are being paid overtime to produce the right ‘intelligence’ reports on Iran to keep the war machines going and the profits coming in."

The Wall Street Journal and BBC, among other prominent sources, have reported extensively on the link between the fall of the dollar and the rise in oil prices. See this report from Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. This isn't speculation even if it isn't on the nightly news. No doubt Iraq's oil figured as much in Bush's pre-invasion calculations as Saddam's plan to demand Euros. Of course it did. Look who's benefited from Iraq's oil and its resulting profits.

See the original report to follow the footnotes, and check out the rest of what Information Clearinghouse has to say about the sordid connections between the Bush Family, the bin Ladins, senior Bush Administration officials, and the Carlyle Group. It might read like conspiracy theory, but as they say: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not coming to get you.

Reality checks: (1) Bush administrations. (2) Cheney VP. (3) Iraq occupation. (4) Weapons sales. (5) Oil prices. (6) The Carlyle Group. (7) Does anything you know about Bush suggest that he would divest his financial interests to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest? No? I didn't think so.

The NeoCon Economic Pilot Test Failed

Whatever else it is, the Bush economy is unarguably Milton Friedman's "free" market theory in application. And it is a collosal, catastrophic failure.

The wreckage is strewn from one coast to the other and from Gulf to Great Lakes. Bodies lie everywhere.

I've lost count of the number of Wall Street tyrannosauri that have died, are dying, or were rescued. (It seems that the "free" market is "free" except when it isn't "free.")

We're still waiting the count of foreclosed homes.

The stock market teeters perilously, disastrously for Boomers with little hope of ever making up the losses incurred while Bush has been in office.

Oil prices are in the stratosphere, dragging the prices of everything else along for the ride.

Equity in a home that has lost half its value is half the equity--a crippling blow for everyone, but especially debilitating for those who are retiring or need to finance assisted living through the sale of their homes. That would be everybody I know. What about you?

Yesterday afternoon, I heard MSNBC's David Schuster interview an American Spectator editor on the foreclosure crisis. Incredibly, the editor--I didn't catch his name--said that the foreclosure crisis wasn't the result of deregulation. It was the result of the socialist expectations of buyers, he said, who knew they'd be bailed out.

Well, ain't that just a Republican NeoCon for ya? I didn't get a chance to cross-examine him myself, but if I had, here's what I'd have asked him. Do you have any data on that? Can you show us the lending houses' marketing materials that promised a bail-out to an oversold buyer? Any examples? Anyone? If that's the case, why aren't there national foreclosure crises twice a year? I mean, consumers have been consuming homes for quite a while now. And, how's that expectation working out for the "socialists"?

Such a lot of lies.

The truth, of course, is that the steady dismantling of banking and lending regulations, including repeal of New Deal jewel Glass-Steagall (pushed through when Clinton was President and hostage to a GOP-dominated Congress), is exactly what caused the foreclosure pig wallow. (If you've nothing better to do, search the New York Times using "Glass-Steagall" or "banking deregulation." It's an interesting historical flashback.)

Actually, there's a fine (and readable) article about the causal connection between both W's deregulation and--heads up--the economic legislative policy of John McCain's chief economics advisor Phil Gramm to the foreclosure crisis. It's worth your time.

Honey, trust me. You don't want Phil Gramm anywhere near the country's economic policy. Didn't you learn anything from George W. Bush?

Next time you hear a conservative blame the people for the foreclosure crisis, ask him this: "Did you REALLY read EVERY SINGLE WORD in the stack of papers you had to sign for every one of your mortgages?"

I didn't think so. You just trusted your realtor and your mortgage broker, didn't you.

This is Really Eerie: Palin is Just W in Drag!

Hey, wait a minute! I think we've seen this show before! Sarah Palin is George W. Bush in drag. Totally. Selfish, arrogant, likely sociopathic, abusive, nepotistic, cronyist, liar, evangelical, ignorant, greedy and a bully. No wonder the GOP loves her. But man, are they slow learners or what!

That's my take. I report, you decide. This from yet another heads-up article in today's NY Times:

In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

For God's sake, haven't we been there and done that?

Press Finally Outing McCain, Palin on Lies, Unreadiness, Judgment

From a New York Times news story today, "McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions:

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.

Today, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, certainly no flaming liberals, also are reporting that Palin did NOT visit Iraq after all, regardless of what McCain and Palin claim:

Report: Palin Did Not Visit Iraq, by Anne E. Kornblut
WASILLA, Alaska -- Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin are scrambling to explain details of her only trip outside North America -- which, according to a new report, did not include Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign had initially claimed.

Palin made an official visit to see Alaskan troops in Kuwait in July of 2007. There, she made a stop at a border crossing with Iraq, but did not actually visit the country, according to a new report in the Boston Globe.

Earlier, McCain aides had said that Palin visited Iraq, and expressed indignation at questions about her slim foreign travel.

And meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle homed in on this jewel:

In a televised interview Friday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin defended her request for an estimated $200 million in federal projects from Congress - even as earlier in the day her GOP running mate John McCain insisted Palin had never sought money from Congress.

In a second ABC interview with Charlie Gibson, the GOP vice presidential candidate acknowledged that she has supported millions of dollars in congressional money - including the famed "Bridge to Nowhere" - to allow Alaska "to plug into ... along with every other state, a share of the federal budget in infrastructure."

Maybe God is not yet dead after all?

I'm being facetious, of course. I mean, maybe responsible US media are figuring out that it's not in their interests, either, to shoehorn the Ditzy Duo into the West Wing.

I really hope Rightwing Reader is reading this. (By the way, he never identified his websites, did he?) He did say, after all, that he hates lying. I assume that he also hates being manipulated, and gives a damn if the nation is in competent hands (having seen what incompetence means). If so, like all the rest of us, he would do to read a wide variety of informed commentary on these campaigns and these candidates.

It's time to get our heads out and pay attention. I have a feeling we're entering the most dangerous decade in US history. I, for one, don't want Johnny Hothead and Moose-a-lini anywhere near the launch button. Whatever weaknesses Obama and Biden might have--all candidates have weaknesses--I take theirs any day of the week.

From the editorial, and keep in mind that despite the rhetoric, the Times is not a "liberal" paper. Granted, it's to the left of the Wall Street Journal, but what isn't?

This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis.

In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation.

From Bob Herbert's op-ed. I quote this because I think it nails the issue precisely. This isn't about bashing bit-part mayors. That's another faux class-war bullet shot at the only party that isn't waging class war: the Democratic Party:

Later, in the spin zones of cable TV, commentators repeatedly made the point that there are probably very few voters — some specifically mentioned “hockey moms” — who could explain the Bush doctrine. But that’s exactly the reason we have such long and intense campaigns. You want to find the individuals who best understand these issues, who will address them in sophisticated and creative ways that enhance the well-being of the nation.

The Bush doctrine, which flung open the doors to the catastrophe in Iraq, was such a fundamental aspect of the administration’s foreign policy that it staggers the imagination that we could have someone no further than a whisper away from the White House who doesn’t even know what it is.

You can’t imagine that John McCain or Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or Joe Lieberman would not know what the Bush doctrine is. But Sarah Palin? Absolutely clueless.

Ms. Palin’s problem is not that she was mayor of a small town or has only been in the Alaska governor’s office a short while. Her problem (and now ours) is that she is not well versed on the critical matters confronting the country at one of the most crucial turning points in its history.

It all kind of makes you wonder what else they're lying about, and what other judgment blunders they're up to, doesn't it? Let's find out now. Before November.

Democrat, Republican, Independent, None-of-the-Above, we all deserve to know.

And surely we owe it to our kids to find out.