Nancy partisan?
Republicans are angry!
Those whiny dillweeds.
;
Boehner or McCain. . .
Who is the bigger dillweed?
Best to pick them both.
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Could Bush be any
More inconsequential? No!
Worst prez ever? Yes!
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Bernanke, Paulson
Believe the sky is falling.
Confidence plummets.
| posted in global economy, politics | 0 Comments
Barack Obama today after the House defeated the bailout bill:
I was on the phone with Secretary Paulson as well as the Speaker of the House and the Congressional leaders, because they are still trying to work through this rescue package. And obviously this is a very difficult thing to do. It’s difficult because we shouldn’t have gotten here in the first place.
We meet here at a time of great uncertainty for America. The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led us to a financial crisis as serious as any we have faced since the Great Depression. They said they wanted to let the market run free but instead they let it run wild, and in the process they trampled our American values of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another. Now, because of speculators who gamed the system and regulators who looked the other way, your jobs, your life savings, and the stability of our entire economy is at risk.
So we’ve been left with no good options. And today, Democrats and Republicans in Washington have a responsibility to make sure that an emergency rescue package is put forward that can at least stop the immediate problems that we have so we can begin to plan for the future.
Now, as I said, this is a hard thing to do. And, you know, right now, Democratic and Republican leaders have agreed, but members have not yet agreed. And there are going to be some bumps and trials and tribulations and ups and downs before we get this rescue package done.
It’s important for the American public and for the markets to stay calm, because things are never smooth in Congress, and to understand that it will get done. We are going to make sure that an emergency package is put together because it is required for us to stabilize the markets and to make sure that when a small business person wakes up tomorrow morning, he’s going to be able to make payroll. That your, that your 401k and all the planning you’ve done for your retirement, that that’s still going to be there. That we’re not going to be losing jobs at a faster clip than we’re doing right now, so I’m confident that we are gonna get there, but it’s gong to be a little rocky. It’s sort of like flying into Denver. You know you’re going to land, but it’s not always fun going over those mountains.
Pretty good — though I’m not crazy about him saying that “your jobs, your life savings, and the stability of our entire economy is at risk,” as it reinforces the Paulson-Bernanke-Chicken Little rhetoric. But for the most part, thoughtful, responsible, the right thing — the adult thing — to do.
What about John McCain?
When McCain boarded his campaign plane with Rob Portman in preparation for his flight to Des Moines, just as the bailout legislation was defeated on the House floor, he ignored questions shouted by reporters from under the wing about the fate of the bill. It’s unclear if he could hear the questions, but when he heard reporters shouting his name he turned and waved.
Uh, okaaaay. What about any of McCain’s spokespeople? Here’s Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s chief economic advisor (whose best-known theory is that McCain is responsible for the invention of the Blackberry):
Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome,” said McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin. “This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.
Sigh. This is putting country first? Blaming a speech by Pelosi? Has anyone checked the House cameras to see just how many Members of Congress were actually listening? And the speech itself is hardly a barn-burner:
[W]hen was the last time someone asked you for $700bn? It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush administration’s failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.
Democrats believe in the free market, which can and does create jobs, wealth, and capital, but left to its own devices it has created chaos.
Democrats insisted that legislation responding to this crisis must protect the American people and Main Street from the meltdown on Wall Street. The American people did not decide to dangerously weaken our regulatory and oversight policies. They did not make unwise and risky financial deals. They did not jeopardise the economic security of the nation. And they must not pay the cost of this emergency recovery and stabilisation bill.
Today we will act to avert this crisis, but informed by our experience of the past eight years with the failed economic leadership … We choose a different path. In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president, we will break free with a failed past and take America in a new direction to a better future.
So we’re supposed to understand that this caused a handful of Republicans to get so mad that they chose to vote against the bill to teach Nancy Pelosi a lesson? Well congratulations guys — all you did was help cause the Dow Industrials to crash by more than 725 points.
Just wondering — where was John McCain at that time? Was he working the phones, urging these Republicans to put country first?
No.
After “suspending” his campaign to return to Washington last week and help negotiate Congress’s Wall Street bailout, McCain was back on the campaign trail today at a rally with his running mate where he criticized his opponent for not responding to the financial crisis in a similar fashion.
“I went to Washington last week to make sure that the taxpayers of Ohio and across this great country were not left footing the bill for mistakes made in Wall Street and evil and greed in Washington,” McCain said.
Despite numerous earlier claims that this crisis was not a situation to be politicized, McCain then added, “it’s a matter of record Senator Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first, at first he didn’t want to get involved. And then he was “monitoring the situation.” That’s not leadership, that’s watching from the sidelines.”
McCain’s remarks came hours before the bailout legislation failed on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Although McCain said last week - and repeated today - that it wasn’t his style to “simply phone it in,” he spent roughly five hours on Capitol Hill last Thursday (including a meeting with Obama at the White House), and less than two hours there on Friday before traveling to the debate. He then spent most of the day on Saturday making phone calls from his campaign headquarters in Virginia, a few miles away from the Hill.
Given the fact that he suspended his campaign last week in order to dash (after brief visits to Katie Couric and Bill Clinton and Baroness Lynn Rothschild) back to Washington to help find a solution to this crisis, what is he doing getting on a campaign plane now? Shouldn’t he be staying in Washington?
Here’s a prediction for you: McCain will emerge from that plane as a born-again populist, ready willing and able to stand up to Barack Obama, George Bush, and those bastards who voted for this plan. To be clear, I’m not talking about the responsible “we can do better by this country and get a better bill” sort of populism that is reflected in Obama’s remarks. No, we’re talking about a “I’m going to burn the house down but boy are you going to enjoy the spectacle” sort of crazy-ass populist rhetoric not seen in this country since the days of Huey Long.
Because, as we all know now, he’d rather destroy the economy — and the country – than lose an election.
So much for McWeaksauce. Time now for McKingfish.
| posted in global economy, politics | 0 Comments
Matt Yglesias on the cowardly decision by Congressional Democrats to support any bailout only if Republicans go along:
May I just observe that it’s distressing to see the news reports — and even worse, the rumors and gossip in DC — that have Democratic legislative leaders putting their primary emphasis on making sure that there are enough Republican votes for a bailout package to provide adequate political cover. Not only is it a mistake to put a primary emphasis on politics rather than on the merits of the bill, but focusing on trying to make sure that the Republicans don’t stick Democrats with the blame for a bailout guarantees a bad bill. . . .
[Democrats should] make Bush and the Senate Republicans choose between allowing a good bill to become law, or blocking a proposal that would prevent a financial meltdown. If they want to block a good bill and then pass a bad one with Republican votes and a handful of moderate Democrats, let that happen. Or if they want to let Democrats pass a good bill, let that happen. But why pass a bad bipartisan bill? And what makes you think you could get a good bipartisan bill? It doesn’t make sense. Congress shouldn’t be looking for “cover” for embarrassing votes; members should be casting votes they’re prepared to defend on the merits.
This is the problem with being a Democrat. As much as I admire Barack Obama and about 15-20 Members of Congress, the rest of our Representatives, particularly in the House, are a bunch of spineless scaredy-cat scum-sucking surrender weasels. They rolled over on Iraq, they rolled over on the Patriot Act, they rolled over on FISA, they rolled over on Alberto Gonzales — they’ve rolled over on everything.
If I were Barack Obama, I would make replacing Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid one of my top priorities should I get elected. Yes, I know it doesn’t work that way, and yes, I know that Congress gets angry when the President starts trying to mess around with Congress’s prerogative to choose its own leadership, but this is freaking ridiculous. We can do better.
Here’s a brief list of some of the Democrats whose spines would make them better Majority Leaders in the Senate, in rough order of my preference:
Pick one of these folks and you change the game in the Senate. And notice that I’m not including Hillary, Schumer, Dodd, Kerry, or Durban on this list. Perhaps Hillary could do the job, but I can’t help feeling that she would be part of the problem as well — and try to dictate Obama’s agenda.
Where is Hunter S. Thompson when we need him?
So who should we choose for the House? My instinct is Rahm Emmanuel, but part of me is convinced that even with a strong spine, he would be too poisonous. Jim Clyburn? Marcy Kaptur? There has to be somebody out there who knows how to run things and has the guts to make things happen.
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Sigh.
Image: Wikipedia, using a GNU Free Documentation License
| posted in global economy, politics, pop culture | 0 Comments
Forbes Magazine has put out its list of the world’s most powerful women. As you would expect from Forbes, there’s a strong emphasis business leaders. Here’s the top ten:
At first I was surprised that I had only heard of three of those in the top ten: Merkel, Nooyi, and Rice. But then I saw how Forbes had determined its rankings:
We measure power as a composite of public profile — calculated using press mentions — and financial heft. . . . The economic component of the ranking considers job title and past
career accomplishments, as well as the amount of money a woman
controls. A chief executive gets the revenue of her business, for
example, while a Nobel winner receives her prize money and a U.N.
agency head receives her organization’s budget. We modify the raw
dollar figures to allow comparisons among the different financial
realms so that the corporate revenue that an executive controls, for
instance, is on the same footing as a country’s gross domestic product,
ascribed to prime ministers.
Well, no wonder it’s all business executives. But what isn’t clear is exactly how both Merkel and Rice, who have little “financial heft” made the top ten, while Hilary Clinton, who Forbes said was the woman with the highest public profile, is only #28, behind the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, for crying out loud.
Another interesting contrast is that of Shelia Blair (#2) and Nancy Pelosi (#35). Isn’t control over U.S. government’s purse strings greater financial clout than managing the U.S. banking insurance system? And what financial heft does Laura Bush (#44) have?
Their methodology doesn’t make much sense. But it does make interesting reading.
Other figures of note in the top 100:
I’m sorry, but I have a hard time taking seriously any list that thinks that the foreign minister of Greece is more powerful than Angelina Jolie.
| posted in global economy, media, politics, pop culture, world at home | 0 Comments
Sorry folks, but I’m not going to do the play-by-play. There are plenty of folks doing that quite well. What you will see here is commentary on any speakers that address foreign policy. Most of that will come on Wednesday, which is “Securing America” night.
I’m going to watch PBS because I can’t get enough of that David Brooks guy. Where did PBS find him anyway?
That said, Nancy Pelosi is wrapping up right now, and there’s no way to beat around the bush: she is just bloody awful. Was there something wrong with the teleprompter? Or is she just that bad? And I’m sorry, the whole chant thing (”John McCain is wrong”) is so hackneyed as to make me want to gouge my eardrums.
If this is a harbinger of the Convention, Buddha help the Democrats.
Oh boy, now it’s a video tribute to Jimmy Carter. I’m praying that America is watching Deal or No Deal instead.
| posted in foreign policy, politics, world at home | 0 Comments
So I started thinking more about that 419-1 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives calling on China to do more to respect human rights. Who voted against it? Who did the Chinese manage to pay off? Who is such a colossal jerk that they don’t care about human rights in China? Isn’t that like not caring about puppies, kittens and bunnies, for crying out loud?
I should have known.
Noted bunny, puppy, and kitten-hater Ron Paul.
Stop the rEVOLution, I want to get off. What a putz.
But he’s not the only one. Turns out that Dennis Kucinich answered “present.” Did he think that Nancy Pelosi was taking attendance? Was he afraid being the 420th vote in favor of the resolution would disappoint his blissninny, moonbat and space alien constituencies?
So congratulations, Congressmen Paul and Kucinich: You’re our Dillweeds of the Day.
| posted in foreign policy, politics, pop culture | 0 Comments
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