KATIE COURIC: And, Bob, I understand that John McCain actually floated an alternative plan. What can you tell us about that?
BOB ORR: We're told at the White House Senator McCain offered an alternative plan that would include fewer regulations and more corporate tax breaks for businesses, kind of a private solution. But we're also told those ideas angered and surprised Democrats like banking chairman Chris Dodd who now says he thinks the White House summit was more of a political stunt for McCain.
"It's the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys."
When asked about his own campaign manager's associations with the mortgage
giants, McCain, in an interview with CNBC Sunday night, said that Davis "has had
nothing to do" with the Homeownership Alliance since it disbanded and "I'll be
glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it." (The
Homeownership Alliance was set up and funded by both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to promote the goal of home ownership and counter efforts to impose tighter
regulations on the two federally sponsored entities.)
...Davis's lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, based in Washington, D.C., continued
to receive $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until last month—long after the
Homeownership Alliance had been terminated.
Two law enforcement officials said Tuesday the FBI is looking at potential fraudSoooo, the FBI is checking to see if anything funky might have been going on with these corporations. Ya think? Considering the feds have known that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been cooking their books for years, I wonder what the sudden urgency is? Maybe it's that embarrassing chafing lawmakers are feeling at the idea of giving a trillion dollar blank check to Hank Paulson to bail out these mortgage crooks while their constituents facing foreclosure continue to be kicked to the curb.
by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and insurer American
International Group Inc. Additionally, a senior law enforcement official said
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. also is under investigation.
Call me fiscally conservative, but I just don't like the idea of giving $700 billion in taxpayer money to the Secretary of the Treasury with zero accountability. I have contacted my Senators to let them know how I feel and to encourage them not to approve this proposal. I got this sample letter from JRandomPoster on DKos:
September 22, 2008
Sincerely,
***
SC Residents: Find your US Representative here and contact their office too.
Everybody Else: Find your Congressmen here.
UPDATE: Apparently Senator DeMint got my letter and agreed with me (heh):
“After reviewing the administration's proposed bailout plan, I believe it is completely unacceptable,” DeMint, chairman of the Senate Republican Steering Committee, said in the statement. “This plan does nothing to address the misguided government policies that created this mess and it could make matters much worse by socializing an entire sector of the U.S. economy.”“This plan fails to oversee or regulate the government failures that led to this crisis,” DeMint added.
Sec. 15.45.510. Grounds for recall.
The grounds for recall are (1) lack of fitness, (2) incompetence, (3) neglect of duties, or (4) corruption.
I'm not a resident of Alaska but if I was, surely I'd be wondering if at least #3 and #4 weren't applicable to Governor Palin.
Gov. Sarah Palin has surrendered important gubernatorial duties to the Republican presidential campaign. McCain staff are handling public and press questions about actions she has taken as governor. The governor who said, "Hold me accountable," is hiding behind the hired guns of the McCain campaign to avoid accountability.
[The Troopergate] investigation isn't just examining potential abuse of power by the governor, but also others in her administration...Since Palin's husband and aides refused to comply with subpoenas issued in the Troopergate investigation (I wonder where they learned that?), will Alaskans stand by and accept this We're-above-the-law behavior or will they demand fair and equal legal treatment for all Alaskans by holding the Palin administration accountable?
[...]
Palin is facing another ethics complaint, filed by a former state employee and political activist alleging her office used improper influence to award a state job.
Just got this in my inbox. Cos you know, Barack and I are e-mail friendees:
This Sunday, September 21st, please join Barack Obama in Charlotte, where he will talk about his vision for creating the kind of change we need.
Speculation on why, when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city billed victims for their own rape kits:
The rape kits that Sarah Palin had a direct role in forcing women to pay for
contained emergency contraception.
***
Who ever knew that politics in Alaska was so interesting?
***
And - thank goodness - a Layman's Explanation of AIG vs Bear vs Lehmann
This morning we woke up to some very serious and troubling news from Wall Street.
The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.
The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.
I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It’s a philosophy we’ve had for the last eight years – one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. It’s a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises.
Well now, instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up – from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street.
This country can’t afford another four years of this failed philosophy. For years, I have consistently called for modernizing the rules of the road to suit a 21st century market – rules that would protect American investors and consumers. And I’ve called for policies that grow our economy and our middle-class together. That is the change I am calling for in this campaign, and that is the change I will bring as President.
Watching a woman, slight of build and full of pizazz so thoroughly bedazzle a vast audience is entertaining. Something chimed in my memory when she brought that crowd to its feet with frantic and worshipful cheering.Ah, yes. I had seen it all before.
It was Judy Garland at The Palace.
And yet no one offered her the vice-presidency. (Fact-checker: Am I right on this?)
Can I just say again: I love that.
Charles Babington analyzes the careening-out-of-control-like-a-covered-wagon-with-a-missing-wheel McCain-Palin campaign claims:
Politicians usually modify or drop claims when a string of newspaper and TV
news accounts concludes they are untrue or greatly exaggerated.[...]
But McCain and his running mate Palin, the Alaska governor, were defiant this
week in the face of similar reports.
Read the details here.
A new McCain-Palin ad reiterates the claim that Palin stopped the scandalous Bridge to Nowhere. As has been documented, over and over, that just ain't so. Today the Wall Street Journal adds their voice to the fact-checkers, stating that Palin:
...endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in
2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a
national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it
elsewhere.
Read the full WSJ article here.
Maybe Palin should change her rhetoric about the bridge to: That Bridge to Nowhere? I told Congress, 'Yes thanks! And if it becomes politically expedient for me to reverse my position later, I'll keep all the money too!'
RIP McCain-Palin campaign TRUTH. We hardly knew ye.
Because Palin's a woman. And because Rove, currently serving as an "informal adviser" to McCain's campaign, once read a book about women that convinced him the only thing women love more than a good white sale is casting a vote for another woman. (OK, I just made that up. I have no idea whether Karl Rove has ever read a book).
Get the outrage flowing. Get the opponent not thinking about the game, get them thinking about your shenanigans. And what happens? The “victimized” team loses its composure, hitting back. The guy who hits second is always the guy who goes to the penalty box.
Watching Sarah Palin this week, and the reaction to her by both sides, and all the talk of hockey mommery, I realized that this is who she is. She skates into the corner, throws up an elbow, and the Democrats cry: “Foul!” Hey! She said Obama has never passed a major bill – this is an objective lie! Hey! She ridiculed community organizing the day after Service was the theme! Technically people should punish her by not voting for her over this infraction!
It’s whining, and whiners hit back second and go to the penalty box on top of it.
The Gender Card
Cronyism
Lying
Used Public Funds for Political Gain
Can't Handle Criticism
Vindictive, Firing
Two weeks after becoming mayor, Palin instituted a gag order on talking to the media for the city’s top employees. Palin denied it was a gag order saying “The department heads appreciated not having to talk to the media.”
Republicans like all the attention Sarah Palin is receiving as their party's first woman on the Presidential ticket. They also seem fond of failing to mention that McCain/Palin would be a disaster for women's rights in this country. They would work to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate a woman's right to choose. They say they want less government - ha! - keep your government out of my reproductive organs, thank you very much.
McCain/Palin does not support equal pay for equal work for women, except as a sound bite. Hullo! It's 2008: Do you know what century you grounded your gender bias in?
McCain/Palin does not support education in schools (except abstinence) to prevent unplanned teen pregnancies. Abstinence-only "education" results in pregnant teenage girls.
The National Organization for Women stands up to the Palin hype:
Look, I don't care if Palin hunts or is a hockey Mom or if her teenage daughter is pregnant. Really I don't. I do care that she works against things I believe in and want from our government. Important things - to me as a woman, as a human, and an American voter.What McCain does not understand is that women supported Hillary Clinton not
just because she was a woman, but because she was a champion on their
issues. They will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for
women.
The Alaska state senator running an investigation of Gov. Palin says the McCain campaign is using stall tactics to prevent him from releasing his final report by Oct. 31, four days before the November election.Full article here.
The head of the Public Safety Employees Association says in regards to Palin's complaints against the trooper, "I made the case that I thought they were groundless, that the department was involving itself in a personal matter. She [the head of the state troopers] asked me if I wanted to call Sarah Palin a liar publicly and I said sure, I'll have a press conference; I don't mind telling people what I believe to be true." [brackets=mine]
The rumor that's been burning up the blogs these past several days is that the teenage daughter of Sarah Palin (Bristol) is actually the mother of the youngest Palin son (Trig). I have no idea if these rumors are true but the evidence - if accurate - is intriguing and I love a good mystery. To combat these rumors, the Palin family and McCain aides announced during Hurricane Gustav that Bristol is "about 5 months pregnant". Since Trig is 4 months old, that excludes her from being Trig's mother. Unless there is a lack of truthiness going on somewhere around here. I don't know, but I'd like to find out.
Some of the blogs positing the 'Bristol is Trig's mother' theory have disappeared but here is one with a number of links (which will hopefully stay live) so you can look into it for yourself if interested.
Mark Okeson, the assistant principal at Wasilla High School, told the Chicago Tribune that Bristol started her junior year last fall, in the town where Sarah Palin grew up.
He said Bristol inexplicably transferred to an Anchorage high school midyear, leaving Levi behind.
"I never heard the story why," he said.
A buncha links to stories worth reading about Sarah Palin:
"Troopergate" - Andrew Halco on Palin's abuse of power
Anchorage Daily News:
Palin has a history of firing people who choose to support her political opponent
McCain's shabby "vetting" of Palin
State of Alaska paying for Palin's attorney in Troopergate, attorney wants a Palin-appointed 3 member board to have jurisdiction over case
Washington Post:
Palin's support of abstinence only school programs in light of her teen daughter's pregnancy
Palin is against federal earmarks - except when they benefit her town
New York Times:
Palin opposed 'Bridge to Nowhere', after she supported it
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