One day after the family values ‘debate’, Joe says good by to his Good Ol’ Boy for the cameras! What a coincidence, right? How much more opposed to the endless wars can he get? What a big stupid con artist Joe Biden really is! Biden sees son and troops off to Iraq The Democratic Party IS, IS, IS the proWAR party. Can the Obama camp make it any more explicit?
In a no surprise vote, the House has just bailed the American people into a deep hole. The ‘new’ legislation of give away was even worse than the first one attempted, with even extra pork added on. In short summary, good money has been thrown with bad, straight into the hands of those needing the money the least. House backs $700bn bail-out plan
Stocks briefly will fly up again, oh so Whoopee! What is left ‘unbailed out’ is the private debt held by tens of millions of Americans who are now losing their homes and jobs. Instead of assistance, they will now be helping bailout the big guys as the Federal Debt shoots up alongside their own. What a prescription for total disaster! Bushels of bale for the rich kleptocrats and the rug being pulled out under from the needy.
Obama is not going to change a thing and that is not me saying it, but one of Obama’s chief aides, or at least so thinks the Wall Street Journal. OCTOBER 3, 2008 Obama Adviser Doesn’t Expect Defense Cuts
Isn’t that just nice? Here we have all the people screaming before about Bush’s War, and now they are almost all planning to vote for a guy who’s going to keep the War Budget right where it’s at! Why? Well they are Democrats, aren’t they?
This gets even worse when one thinks about what the bloated military budget and the deficit spending keeping it afloat is doing to the American and world economies. Where is Mr. Change here? He is for sinking the US people and the US dollar straight down into the gutter. He is for draining the country of its wealth and putting it into the private hands of a very few. He is for a bloated military. He is for permanent war.
What strikes one about the ruling classes servants, McCain and Obama, is how much alike they really are in their political programs of give away to the super rich. It is no accident that neither had the slightest difference in how they came out to support Bush’s Federal Giveaway program for the looters from the US Treasury. Neither said that they had alternative programs for America that $700,000,000,000 could better be spent upon. Not a whisper of difference between the two. They’re both with the Big Boys.
If you are looking for a move away from US militarism under Obama, then look again. Both the Republicans and Democrats are completely controlled by the military suppliers;companies like Lockheed, Boeing , Northrop, etc. ‘Scrubbing’ them my ass! The only scrubbing that will get done by Obama and his sidekicks will be the American general public and not the military suppliers. I don’t believe he’ll touch them in the least, do you?
Let’s be honest: we all knew when Bush stole the election in 2000 that he would bankrupt America, and stick the taxpayers with the bill on his way out. This is about as unsurprising as discovering that the sun has set in the evening.
Will Wall Street’s meltdown turn America into a police state?
Who knew the GOP was gay? ChristoFascists blaming gays for financial meltdown. Myself, I’m more likely to believe it’s God’s judgement on all the phonies pretending to be Christians. Or karma. The filthy rich have been screwing us for generations, now it’s our turn. Pitchforks and torches are about the best investment you can find these days.
The Shadow of the Pitchfork [EXCERPT]
Elite Panic Attack as Bailout Goes Bust by Chris Floyd
The vote by the House of Representatives to defeat the Wall Street bailout plan is the first act of political courage that the Congress of the United States has mounted in the last seven years. The fact that it was due largely to right-wing Republicans afraid of going down with the sinking ship of the witless leader they have followed blindly throughout his reign is a delicious irony — but the whys and wherefores of the vote are not important. What matters is that one of America’s moribund institutions has flickered to life long enough to derail a disastrous action that would have shoved the nation even deeper into the pit of corruption and ruin where it has been mired for so long.
Nothing — absolutely nothing — could be politically safer than opposing George W. Bush. And yet the entire Democratic leadership, Barack Obama included, lined up to support a cockamamie plan proposed by this scorned and shriveled figure, a plan that was transparently nothing more than an audacious raid on the Treasury by Big Money hoods and yet another authoritarian power grab by a gang of murderous, torturing, warmongering toadies. This was the plan and these were the people that the Democrats decided to fight for.
What’s more, the Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder with the president on what is apparently the only issue that can now stir Americans to genuine anger and widespread protest: a direct threat to their bank accounts. Wars of aggression like the Nazis used to wage; elaborate tortures like the KGB used to practice; concentration camps, lawbreaking leaders, diminishment of liberty, the slaughter of a million innocent people in a land destroyed by an illegal and pointless invasion — all of that stuff is pretty much OK, easily swallowable, worth no more than a shrug or perhaps a frowny “tsk tsk” before going on to the sports pages or flipping over to another channel. But put out an open ploy to steal their money and give it to the filthy rich — and baby, it’s pitchfork time! Yet here, as the public face of just such a ploy, is where the Democrats chose to make their stand.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Sept 30 notes, thomasmc.com.
One of the most pathetic figures of our times is certainly that of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian ‘commie’ boss who fell in love with Margaret Thatcher and Ronnie Reagan and had his love dashed on the rocks of reality. What a world class dummy (ventriloquist dummy even)! So what’s he doing almost 2 decades later?
He’s still doing the same! Gorbachev to form new Russian party Note that it is not really Gorbachev who is forming this new political party though. It is one of the Russian billionaires Gorbachev helped create from shared Soviet national wealth, Alexander Lebedev. Lebedev is kind of a combo figure; part Bill Gates, part exKGB, part pseudo communist of the past, part crooked Russian businessman (tycoon is what they pleasantly presently call these mafiosos).
Gorbachev doesn’t get it at all, and for somebody supposedly who studied marxism-leninism he sure is a lame brain. He simply doesn’t understand that capitalist social democracy is something built on imperialism and the shared exploitation of wealth ripped off through exploitation of the poorer capitalist Third World countries, and not through pretty flowery words about democracy, etc. There never would have been a spread of Scandinavian social democracy without the Scandinavian countries being blocked with imperial powers like the US, Britain, France, and Germany in a common capitalist economy based on exploitation of the poorer ones.
Gorbachev’s new political formation is likely to get her about zilch Russian support, but it will allow him and Lebedev to parade themselves as great Russian ‘democrats’ at functions where folk like Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Jimmy Carter might show up at. These guys are kind of like Hollywood even… All shine and no substance.
PS- And if you read closely, Mikhail is now a business man himself having invested with Lebedev in major Russian newspaper. Watch out, Rupert Murdoch! You have liberal competition!
When the Democrats were the minority they seemed so weak. Now in the Majority they’re positively wimps. Pundits tell us it’s a lack of leadership. Why would the corporate media overlook who’s at the whip? It would seem clear that the corporations writing the legislation, funding the campaigns, and paying for the free lunch, are driving the agenda. The GOP is paid to play the white hats, and when a bill is unpopular, the Dems are pushed forward to play the creeps.
On the proposed bailout ripoff, the Dems were not the sons of bitches, they’re just the bitches. I heard a Dem scare-mongeree explain that in spite of loathing the idea of a solution which benefited the wrong people, the bailout was our only option. “All economists agree we have to do this” he said, ignoring quite a few who have urged the opposite. The interviewer interrupted to announce, this just in, the vote had failed and as a result the DOW had plunged by 700 points. She wanted his response: “Oh. My. God.”
As Bush and his GOP team stand in the shadows, the Democrats are thrust forward to “lead” the support for this criminal legislation. Whether the bill won or lost, either way the Democrats would come out looking like shits.
I’m reminded about how an invading army flushes out defenders still hiding. Send your captives into the buildings to spring the booby-traps. Make them open the doors to draw the fire. Among thugs in prison the dirty work is done by the bitches.
Except for Democracy Now, the media won’t report the authentic Democratic efforts to lead. Here’s Dennis Kucinich on the floor of Congress speaking against the bailout and asking: why, why why:
“The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered.
Why aren’t we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren’t we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers’ money?
Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren’t we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess?
Why aren’t we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren’t we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the $700 billion in toxic assets?
“Why aren’t we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren’t we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren’t we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street?
Isn’t it time for fundamental change in our debt based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks?
Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs? Wall Street is a place of bears and bulls. It is not smart to force taxpayers to dance with bears or to follow closely behind the bulls.”
Michael Moore is more charitable about the Democrats’ actions yesterday. Here’s his update:
Friends,
Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan’s finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.
But what they didn’t know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.
The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.
A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill.
Here’s what happened:
The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin’ on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda.
The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this “financial crisis” reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of “the people.”
Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I’d seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check — there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation’s trains, too), heck, they would’ve thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could’ve conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That’s what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold.
The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Dennis Kucinich. They spoke the truth.
The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn’t get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it’s bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds.
And guess what? That’s exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It’s a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees!
Of course, sane people know that nobody “lost” anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again.
But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won’t last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand?
Here’s my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush’s proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.
So the ball is in the Democrats’ hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated:
1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street’s spending of the $700 billion;
2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people’s money;
3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people’s mortgages to avoid foreclosures — this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;
4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like “suggested” when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout;
5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the “financial crisis” and cause even MORE of a meltdown.
Put a fork in this slab of pork. It’s over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We’ve bought ourselves less than 72 hours.
Yours,
Michael Moore
I used to think that people who voted Republican were the stupidest people on earth, now I’m beginning to suspect it’s actually the elected Democrats. Here they are railroading through a bailout that 2 out of 3 Americans oppose, and acting like they are some sort of heroes for bankrupting the American taxpayers against their will. I will never vote for a Democrat again.
Real life VAMPIRES exposed!
Economists: bailout will NOT fix the economy, it’s just a gift to the filthy rich.
McCain is an even bigger fraud than Bush. After making such a big deal about returning to DC to “save America,” he doesn’t even show up on Capitol Hill, says he can “just phone it in.”
I don’t want John McCain gambling away America’s future, do you?
McCain’s “surge” succeeds, again.
Palin supports cross-border raids into Pakistan, the very thing McCain attacked Obama for supporting, during the debate.
I’m not even curious, obviously Fort Hill, SC Mayor Funderburk has sold his soul to the Devil.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Sept 29 notes, thomasmc.com.
Is the strategy to pay this ransom, then have the robbers intercepted as they make their escape? What other excuse will Democrats Pelosi and Reid offer for coming home with a bag full of 140,000,000,000 wooden nickels? That money’s gone if we don’t STOP THEM! STOP THEM NOW!
We hear pundits say the bailout sum is beyond comprehension. Nonsense. It’s our prosperity, our health, the pursuit of happiness we offer our children and take for granted. Gone. Unless there is still time to shout down the miscreants in Washington. As we see the politicians of every stripe complicit in this heist, and insufficient outcry in the streets, isn’t it hard not to conclude Americans are getting what they deserve? If you have any gut feeling that you DO NOT WANT TO STAND IDLY BY, listen to Michael Moore: (although the DC email/phone connection appears to have been pulled.)
Friends,
Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies — who must soon vacate the White House — are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday’s New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:
“Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
“Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
“At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
“Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.”
Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to “consult” in the bailout.
The problem is, nobody truly knows what this “collapse” is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn’t know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can’t figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.
And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Falling for whom? NOTHING in this “bailout” package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.
Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What’s this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?
It has everything to do with it. This so-called “collapse” was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people’s home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it’s because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn’t afford. Here’s the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage “crisis” may never have happened.
This bailout’s mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It’s to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It’s to make sure their yachts and mansions and “way of life” go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!
I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something — NOW! Here’s what you can do immediately:
1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they’ve made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what’s the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.
2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).
3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.
When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.comP.S. Having read further the details of this bailout bill, you need to know you are being lied to. They talk about how they will prevent golden parachutes. It says NOTHING about what these executives and fat cats will make in SALARY. According to Rep. Brad Sherman of California, these top managers will continue to receive million-dollar-a-month paychecks under this new bill. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. Foreign banks and investors will be allowed to receive billion-dollar handouts. A large chunk of this $700 billion is going to be given directly to Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. There is NO guarantee of ever seeing that money again.
P.P.S. From talking to people I know in DC, they say the reason so many Dems are behind this is because Wall Street this weekend put a gun to their heads and said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we’ll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of your middle class constituents. The Dems are scared they may make good on their threat. But this is not the time to back down or act like the typical Democrat we have witnessed for the last eight years. The Dems handed a stolen election over to Bush. The Dems gave Bush the votes he needed to invade a sovereign country. Once they took over Congress in 2007, they refused to pull the plug on the war. And now they have been cowered into being accomplices in the crime of the century. You have to call them now and say “NO!” If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done when President Obama is in the White House. THESE DEMOCRATS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS THE BACKBONE WE GIVE THEM. CALL CONGRESS NOW.
Even with the official CBS transcript cleaned up, the Couric-Palin interview remains a riveting embarrassment. Fortunately online videos have archived poor Sarah Palin in all her Bush-league ignobility, if you can bear it. Don’t the Republicans appear to be unfathomable mockeries of themselves? Yet they elicit sympathy as they are seen being mocked.
If a person says something so irresistibly stupid that a bystander cannot fail to laugh, even if it’s embarrassed laughter, and if a third party characterizes the laughter as mockery, who comes out the winner?
(I once watched someone walk out of the bathroom with a tail of toilet paper sticking from his pants. Wherever he turned people were stifling their laughter, especially as he looked into our faces for what we found so funny. Finally he discovered the toilet paper, and I still ache at the memory of anticipating his next eye contact. I have no question who emerged the loser.)
But let’s resume our previously scheduled laugh track:
1. The Interview
COURIC: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?
PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land — boundary that we have with — Canada. […]
COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.
PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our — our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia —
The entire world has got to be referencing Miss South Carolina’s famous “US Americans, SUCH AS” essay answer. But these days who can doubt Ms. Upton was plenty qualified to be Miss Teen USA. It seems so long ago now, what was it? Early 2008? Now she could stand in for GOP running mate.
I’ll address the […] in a moment.
So now even some media talking heads are piling on, as if they cannot bear NOT TO call Sarah Palin on her obvious lack of qualification beyond the wading pool. I think the moral outrage is refreshing, and I love watching Wolf Blitzer for example, cling to the party line in the face of a colleague’s truth talking.
But I have to wonder, where were the dissenters when George Dubya was performing his interview follies? Did these now-malcontents think George Dubya was doing just fine? Were his answers making them proud? Was Dumbya’s imbecility just opaque enough that these same pundits could reassure us in good conscience that they thought Bush was the right man for the job?
2. The Debate
For yet other TV news personalities, next week’s Vice-Presidential debate cannot come soon enough. I’m sure their eagerness matches overwhelming public anticipation for Palin’s moose-in-the-headlights face plant. Oh My God is that going to be some Reality Television! It’ll be the Special Olympics, in the Roman Coliseum, costarring the Honorable Senator from Delaware as the lion.
I do not envy Joe Biden as he tries his best to be a kindly Ray Bolger Lion enlisting Dorothy’s help to find his heart. (Do you doubt that’s a task tailored for him?) While everyone knows he’s expected to eat her.
No, I think Senator Biden is going to prove his worth as a politician if he can pull this off. It’s hard enough for a man to play a woman in tennis without being seen as ruthless cad, or worse, a ruthless patronizing cad. You have to lob your serves, declare long balls to be in, spoil your swings, take foolish risks, fall behind in the score, and still rally for the win. Or not. To win.
I’m intending here only to contrast stronger athlete versus weaker, against a duel of experienced versus fish-out-of-league. But certainly sexism is going to be an elephantine domestic hazard for a rich white male, if not likely an imposing statesman chauvinist.
But mostly I do not envy Sarah Palin. She may be stupid. She may be stupid as a pit bull, as her hockey boast turns out to be more than literal. In a dog, Palin’s quality describes tenacity, in a human it distills into temerity. To judge from her interview performances so far, Sarah Palin doesn’t know much. I think it’s also clear, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin knows what she doesn’t know.
Would you have the courage to ascend a stage knowing what Sarah Palin knows? I’d sooner go up against Mohammad Ali.
* […]
Here’s the unexpurgated snippet:
PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to caric– I don’t know, you know reporters…
COURIC: Mocked?
PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.
3. “Mocked”
It was the worst acting I’ve nearly ever witnessed. Sarah Palin didn’t want to be seen accusing reporters of mockery, because a proper victim doesn’t point the finger. Nor could she be seen choosing the precise word which she wanted Couric to interject. So Palin started the word “caricature” but interrupted herself and then waited for her interviewer to finish the sentence.
Now if Couric was genuinely trying to fill in Palin’s phrase, she would have had to suggest “mock” in the present tense. Not “Mocked.”
And if Palin had really intended to use the word “caricature,” she would have had to preface it with something like “paint a caricature” to make sense. Although, should I presume to straighten Palin’s English mis-usage? Maybe she was about to invent the word “caricaturize,” the way I’m self-satisfied with misusage.
I am confident enough, however, to conclude that Couric was holding the “mocked” term at the ready. And Couric was probably plenty embarrassed at the awkwardness Palin displayed in delivering her cue. And to further taint Couric with complicity, it was imperative that “Mocked?” be conjugated in the past tense because it is declarative of a deed done, not timidly alleged.
Mockery has been an Election 2008 keyword ever since the RNC, where Rudy Giuliani led the Republicans in unspoken ridicule of the Democrats. “Community Organizer.” Arms punctuating the term as if it was a question. Pause for laughter. That was mockery, and yet ever since their convention, the inherently accusatory “mock” has been attributed as a perpetration of the Democrats. When Barack Obama criticizes McCain, it’s mockery.
Of course, if Obama so much as debunks an accusation of McCain’s, it’s mockery. But isn’t that due to the simplistic dishonesty of the Republican lie? Someone accuses you of being a Martian, any refutation is going to be a mockery of their intelligence. It’s a brilliant trap.
Probably there are a wonderful variety of words to describe it, but the media is keeping it simple for the American public. One slander fits all: MOCK. Specifically, Dems Mock GOP. I’ve yet to see it the other way around.
4. “Pushback”
Here’s another term that the media has been happy enough to adopt en masse. What does it mean? You tell a lie, you are called on that lie, you PUSH BACK. Tada!
Refutation doesn’t cut it, because you don’t actually make a case to justify your initial lie.
Repudiate fits. So does reject. So does deny. But those words explain a little too much about what you’re doing. If the media reported that the Republicans were standing behind their lie, and rejected what’s on record as contradicting the lie. They wouldn’t get far in the court of public opinion.
And the news reporter’s current function of avoiding having to challenge untruths would become untenable.
PUSHBACK gives the illogical untruth longer legs. It turns the debate into a shoving match, where arguments are treated as having equal weight. Push and push back. Playground verbal exchanges of nonesense. I know you are but what am I?
While trying to get the Republican Party to pass Bush’s public give away to Wall Street, the Democratic Party has also been busy on another front to help bankrupt the US public.
This Wednesday the House passed a bill that gives the Pentagon $612.5 billion to keep its worldwide murder machine running on deficit spending. See House passes $612B defense bill, includes troop pay raise Between the House and Senate, less than 50 Senators and Congressmen opposed this military-industrial Welfare Program Bill, truly once again illustrating that the Democratic and Republican Parties are united against the American people. It simply makes little to no difference to try to distinguish minor differences in the personalities involved in the crooks representing these two parties. The def acto leaders of both parties are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
What can be more pathetic and abjectly servile than the Democratic Party seen pushing to pass Bush’s bailout of the bankrupt private sector with public monies, while the Republican Party itself blocks it? And the Republicans are the minority in both the House and Senate, too! See the Denver Post’s GOP rebellion stalls bailout and Reuter’s White House calls in big guns as bailout battle rages Yes, the ‘big guns’ are being turned on the Republican Party resistance and not any resistance from the Democratic Party which is rolling over and playing dead for Bush once again.
Expect the same politics if Obama gets in the White House, since the Democrats are the party of the super rich just as much as the Republicans are. Despite all the pretense of supposedly opposing neocon programs, the Democrats are on board. The financial shenanigans and criminality of Wall Street and the DP response to them is just one more case in point. The Democrats are out to bankrupt the US Treasury arm in arm with Bush and Cheney.
Rick Davis & Freddie Mac: it’s Keating 5 all over again,
except this time there aren’t five to blame, just John McCain.
John McCain’s taking a nap. Let’s hope he never wakes up. Now that McCain and Palin have chickened out of the debates, they should just concede the election. The voters have seen what liars and frauds they are, the only way they could win now would be to buy off Diebold, and I don’t think America is going to put up with that again.
Bush’s speech last night was one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever witnessed. Him recounting the sequence of failures, like a schoolkid trying to prove he had been paying attention in class, but showing not a bit more insight as to why they failed, than if he had just been scanning the newspaper headlines for the last few weeks. All that kept going through my mind was how many times he has insisted there was nothing to worry about, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” This country is going to need a Truth and Reconcilliation commission, so we can round up and prosecute all these crooks, along with everyone who helped them get away with it.
Treasury Secretary Paulson blames future administrations for current financial crisis.
Democrats and Republicans reach deal, they will sell your children and grandchildren into slavery, in order to keep Wall St. in the luxury to which it has become accustomed.
John Edwards may have spent $400 on a haircut, but John McCain spent $5,500 on makeup!
McCain wanted Condi Rice, not Sarah Palin, as his VP running mate, but thought her being a lesbian would kill the ticket.
Sarah Palin’s lover revealed. And it ain’t Todd, it’s his best friend! Way to go, Ms. “Family Values!”
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Sept 25 notes, thomasmc.com.
The Democrats are just so damn predictable it makes one wanna throw up. After bleating out their protests against the trillion dollar tax-paid giveaway to loan sharks in trouble, they then meekly take a carrot, bray, and go about doing the dirty work their Republican masters have set out for them in the field. Obama says Congress appears “close” to bailout deal. What a joke and what a joker! What a donkey.
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – Organizations in Southern Colorado will participate in a National Day of Action in opposition to the no-strings attached, $700 billion corporate bailout plan advanced by President Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson. A press conference will take place 2PM on Thursday, Sept. 25 in front of the Department of Human Services Sand Creek Office at 1635 South Murray Blvd., Colorado Springs.
From the LOCAL PRESS RELEASE:
“We believe the bailout is wrong headed – it’s low-wage working families struggling to make ends meet, who will most suffer the consequences of this kind of bad economic policy,” said Dennis Apuan, community leader and Democratic candidate for Statehouse, District 17. “We must press on our elected officials to ensure that families do not have to make impossible choices between feeding their children, heating their homes and filling their prescriptions. We need leaders who know how to respond to the growing need in our communities – lost jobs, threatened homes, and surging food and energy prices,” Apuan added.
The National Day of Action will feature more than 75 press conferences, demonstrations and other public events throughout the United States. Some of the events are being held by local and national organizations; others will be citizen-organized, involving taxpayers angered by the proposed corporate bailout, as introduced in Congress. The local event will include a voter registration drive and sign-up opportunities to volunteer in community civic engagement.
“With so many of the citizens and residents of House District 17 suffering from the downturn in the economy, it is important that they have a voice in these ill-advised corporate bailouts,” said Rosemary Harris, President of the Colorado Springs Branch NAACP. “This is a diverse community, with people from all racial, social and economic backgrounds. Our lives matter. Our voices matter. And our vote is our true voice. Registering voters who will determine the future policies and future leaders of this House District, this state, and this country is perhaps the best way to respond to the actions of those in Washington,” Harris added.
Among the leaders of the national organizing effort are TrueMajority.org, US Action Education Fund, ACORN, Campaign For America’s Future, Coalition on Human Needs, Military Spouses For Change, National Priorities Project and many others.
From the INDYPENDENT’s Arun Gupta, the ORIGINAL EMAIL CALL-OUT:
NO BAILOUT FOR WALL STREET
Protest on Wall Street this Thursday at 4pm!
Call to Self-OrganizeThis week the White House is going to try to push through the biggest robbery in world history with nary a stitch of debate to bail out the Wall Street bastards who created this economic apocalypse in the first place.
This is the financial equivalent of September 11. They think, just like with the Patriot Act, they can use the shock to force through the “therapy,” and we’ll just roll over!
Think about it: They said providing healthcare for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs. If this passes, forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy.
This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate. Let’s demonstrate this Thursday at 4pm in Wall Street (see below).
We know the congressional Democrats will peep meekly before caving in like they have on everything else, from FISA to the Iraq War.
With Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG, the money markets and now this omnibus bailout, well in excess of $1 trillion will be distributed from the poor, workers and middle class to the scum floating on top.
This whole mess gives lie to the free market. The Feds are propping up stock prices, directing buyouts, subsidizing crooks and swindlers who already made a killing off the mortgage bubble.
Worst of all, even before any details have been hashed out, The New York Times admits that “Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it,” and its chief financial correspondent writes that the Bush administration wants “Congress to give them a blank check to do whatever they want, whatever the cost, with no one able to watch them closely.”
It’s socialism for the rich and dog-eat-dog capitalism for the rest of us.
Let’s take it to the heart of the financial district! Gather at 4pm, this Thursday, Sept. 25 in the plaza at the southern end of Bowling Green Park, which is the small triangular park that has the Wall Street bull at the northern tip.
By having it later in the day we can show these thieves, as they leave work, we’re not their suckers. Plus, anyone who can’t get off work can still join us downtown as soon as they are able.
There is no agenda, no leaders, no organizing group, nothing to endorse other than we’re not going to pay! Let the bondholders pay, let the banks pay, let those who brought the “toxic” mortgage-backed securities pay!
On this list are many key organizers and activists. We have a huge amount of connections – we all know many other organizations, activists and community groups. We know P.R. folk who can quickly write up and distribute press releases, those who can contact legal observers, media activists who can spread the word, the videographers who can film the event, etc.
Do whatever you can – make and distribute your own flyers, contact all your groups and friends. This crime is without precedence and we can’t be silent! What’s the point of waiting for someone else to organize a protest two months from now, long after the crime has been perpetrated?
We have everything we need to create a large, peaceful, loud demonstration. Millions of others must feel the same way; they just don’t know what to do. Let’s take the lead and make this the start!
AGAIN:
When: 4pm – ? Thursday, September 25.
Where: Southern end of Bowling Green Park, in the plaza area
What to bring: Banners, noisemakers, signs, leaflets, etc.
Why: To say we won’t pay for the Wall Street bailout
Who: Everyone!
PETITION LETTER from 200 ECONOMISTS:
To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:
As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:
1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.
2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.
3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America’s dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.
For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.
Signed (updated at 9/25/2008 8:30AM CT)
Acemoglu Daron (Massachussets Institute of Technology)
Adler Michael (Columbia University)
Admati Anat R. (Stanford University)
Alexis Marcus (Northwestern University)
Alvarez Fernando (University of Chicago)
Andersen Torben (Northwestern University)
Baliga Sandeep (Northwestern University)
Banerjee Abhijit V. (Massachussets Institute of Technology)
Barankay Iwan (University of Pennsylvania)
Barry Brian (University of Chicago)
Bartkus James R. (Xavier University of Louisiana)
Becker Charles M. (Duke University)
Becker Robert A. (Indiana University)
Beim David (Columbia University)
Berk Jonathan (Stanford University)
Bisin Alberto (New York University)
Bittlingmayer George (University of Kansas)
Boldrin Michele (Washington University)
Brooks Taggert J. (University of Wisconsin)
Brynjolfsson Erik (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Buera Francisco J. (UCLA)
Camp Mary Elizabeth (Indiana University)
Carmel Jonathan (University of Michigan)
Carroll Christopher (Johns Hopkins University)
Cassar Gavin (University of Pennsylvania)
Chaney Thomas (University of Chicago)
Chari Varadarajan V. (University of Minnesota)
Chauvin Keith W. (University of Kansas)
Chintagunta Pradeep K. (University of Chicago)
Christiano Lawrence J. (Northwestern University)
Cochrane John (University of Chicago)
Coleman John (Duke University)
Constantinides George M. (University of Chicago)
Crain Robert (UC Berkeley)
Culp Christopher (University of Chicago)
Da Zhi (University of Notre Dame)
Davis Morris (University of Wisconsin)
De Marzo Peter (Stanford University)
Dubé Jean-Pierre H. (University of Chicago)
Edlin Aaron (UC Berkeley)
Eichenbaum Martin (Northwestern University)
Ely Jeffrey (Northwestern University)
Eraslan Hülya K. K.(Johns Hopkins University)
Faulhaber Gerald (University of Pennsylvania)
Feldmann Sven (University of Melbourne)
Fernandez-Villaverde Jesus (University of Pennsylvania)
Fohlin Caroline (Johns Hopkins University)
Fox Jeremy T. (University of Chicago)
Frank Murray Z.(University of Minnesota)
Frenzen Jonathan (University of Chicago)
Fuchs William (University of Chicago)
Fudenberg Drew (Harvard University)
Gabaix Xavier (New York University)
Gao Paul (Notre Dame University)
Garicano Luis (University of Chicago)
Gerakos Joseph J. (University of Chicago)
Gibbs Michael (University of Chicago)
Glomm Gerhard (Indiana University)
Goettler Ron (University of Chicago)
Goldin Claudia (Harvard University)
Gordon Robert J. (Northwestern University)
Greenstone Michael (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Guadalupe Maria (Columbia University)
Guerrieri Veronica (University of Chicago)
Hagerty Kathleen (Northwestern University)
Hamada Robert S. (University of Chicago)
Hansen Lars (University of Chicago)
Harris Milton (University of Chicago)
Hart Oliver (Harvard University)
Hazlett Thomas W. (George Mason University)
Heaton John (University of Chicago)
Heckman James (University of Chicago – Nobel Laureate)
Henderson David R. (Hoover Institution)
Henisz, Witold (University of Pennsylvania)
Hertzberg Andrew (Columbia University)
Hite Gailen (Columbia University)
Hitsch Günter J. (University of Chicago)
Hodrick Robert J. (Columbia University)
Hopenhayn Hugo (UCLA)
Hurst Erik (University of Chicago)
Imrohoroglu Ayse (University of Southern California)
Isakson Hans (University of Northern Iowa)
Israel Ronen (London Business School)
Jaffee Dwight M. (UC Berkeley)
Jagannathan Ravi (Northwestern University)
Jenter Dirk (Stanford University)
Jones Charles M. (Columbia Business School)
Kaboski Joseph P. (Ohio State University)
Kahn Matthew (UCLA)
Kaplan Ethan (Stockholm University)
Karolyi, Andrew (Ohio State University)
Kashyap Anil (University of Chicago)
Keim Donald B (University of Pennsylvania)
Ketkar Suhas L (Vanderbilt University)
Kiesling Lynne (Northwestern University)
Klenow Pete (Stanford University)
Koch Paul (University of Kansas)
Kocherlakota Narayana (University of Minnesota)
Koijen Ralph S.J. (University of Chicago)
Kondo Jiro (Northwestern University)
Korteweg Arthur (Stanford University)
Kortum Samuel (University of Chicago)
Krueger Dirk (University of Pennsylvania)
Ledesma Patricia (Northwestern University)
Lee Lung-fei (Ohio State University)
Leeper Eric M. (Indiana University)
Leuz Christian (University of Chicago)
Levine David I.(UC Berkeley)
Levine David K.(Washington University)
Levy David M. (George Mason University)
Linnainmaa Juhani (University of Chicago)
Lott John R. Jr. (University of Maryland)
Lucas Robert (University of Chicago – Nobel Laureate)
Luttmer Erzo G.J. (University of Minnesota)
Manski Charles F. (Northwestern University)
Martin Ian (Stanford University)
Mayer Christopher (Columbia University)
Mazzeo Michael (Northwestern University)
McDonald Robert (Northwestern University)
Meadow Scott F. (University of Chicago)
Mehra Rajnish (UC Santa Barbara)
Mian Atif (University of Chicago)
Middlebrook Art (University of Chicago)
Miguel Edward (UC Berkeley)
Miravete Eugenio J. (University of Texas at Austin)
Miron Jeffrey (Harvard University)
Moretti Enrico (UC Berkeley)
Moriguchi Chiaki (Northwestern University)
Moro Andrea (Vanderbilt University)
Morse Adair (University of Chicago)
Mortensen Dale T. (Northwestern University)
Mortimer Julie Holland (Harvard University)
Muralidharan Karthik (UC San Diego)
Nanda Dhananjay (University of Miami)
Nevo Aviv (Northwestern University)
Ohanian Lee (UCLA)
Pagliari Joseph (University of Chicago)
Papanikolaou Dimitris (Northwestern University)
Parker Jonathan (Northwestern University)
Paul Evans (Ohio State University)
Pejovich Svetozar (Steve) (Texas A&M University)
Peltzman Sam (University of Chicago)
Perri Fabrizio (University of Minnesota)
Phelan Christopher (University of Minnesota)
Piazzesi Monika (Stanford University)
Piskorski Tomasz (Columbia University)
Rampini Adriano (Duke University)
Reagan Patricia (Ohio State University)
Reich Michael (UC Berkeley)
Reuben Ernesto (Northwestern University)
Roberts Michael (University of Pennsylvania)
Robinson David (Duke University)
Rogers Michele (Northwestern University)
Rotella Elyce (Indiana University)
Ruud Paul (Vassar College)
Safford Sean (University of Chicago)
Sandbu Martin E. (University of Pennsylvania)
Sapienza Paola (Northwestern University)
Savor Pavel (University of Pennsylvania)
Scharfstein David (Harvard University)
Seim Katja (University of Pennsylvania)
Seru Amit (University of Chicago)
Shang-Jin Wei (Columbia University)
Shimer Robert (University of Chicago)
Shore Stephen H. (Johns Hopkins University)
Siegel Ron (Northwestern University)
Smith David C. (University of Virginia)
Smith Vernon L.(Chapman University- Nobel Laureate)
Sorensen Morten (Columbia University)
Spiegel Matthew (Yale University)
Stevenson Betsey (University of Pennsylvania)
Stokey Nancy (University of Chicago)
Strahan Philip (Boston College)
Strebulaev Ilya (Stanford University)
Sufi Amir (University of Chicago)
Tabarrok Alex (George Mason University)
Taylor Alan M. (UC Davis)
Thompson Tim (Northwestern University)
Tschoegl Adrian E. (University of Pennsylvania)
Uhlig Harald (University of Chicago)
Ulrich, Maxim (Columbia University)
Van Buskirk Andrew (University of Chicago)
Veronesi Pietro (University of Chicago)
Vissing-Jorgensen Annette (Northwestern University)
Wacziarg Romain (UCLA)
Weill Pierre-Olivier (UCLA)
Williamson Samuel H. (Miami University)
Witte Mark (Northwestern University)
Wolfers Justin (University of Pennsylvania)
Woutersen Tiemen (Johns Hopkins University)
Zingales Luigi (University of Chicago)
Zitzewitz Eric (Dartmouth College)
I may be too impressionable, but I’ve warmed up to Sarah Palin. For President! The American two-party delusion needs a coup-de-grace, and doesn’t Palin have just authenticity enough to pull the trigger? Assail this logic if you can.
The Democratic Party is already out of the picture. Since reclaiming Congress in 2006 the Dems have shown Americans what they can do. Nothing. Name the issue, whatever their constituents want, the Democrats won’t deliver it. They can’t even commandeer a lead in the polls against the most despised political machine in recent memory. They’ve got a charismatic candidate who can run pirouettes around his opponent, a corrupt, desperate, lying geriatric. But the Dems can’t sway the corporate media from allegiance to the GOP.
How many rotten eggs do you need hatched? The Democrats are already rolling over for 2008 election irregularities. They will give in to Wall Street’s trillion-plus dollar extortion. And they won’t end the war, or stop torture, or defend the Constitution, or impeach genocidal bastards, regardless the public’s outrage. The Democratic Party is a dead lost cause. Dead.
The Republican Party is still kicking -the shit out of us- and they’ve no doubt got plenty left in them. We learned in just the space of a week that the GOP financiers must get their money or they’ll break the economy’s kneecaps. What kind of odds do you want the goons won’t be back for more?
We used to imagine that asset-stripping capitalists knew enough not to kill the golden goose, but maybe we underestimate the standard of living (ours) left to strangle from her.
Republican journeymen such as McCain, Lieberman, Graham, and cronies Paulson et Cheney, won’t stop at extracting your gold fillings. But novitiate Sarah Palin just may have a less developed depth of greed.
I’ve made this mistake before, when I imagined George W. Bush too simple to know that absolute power was his to corrupt. But don’t you have the sense Sarah Palin is the real deal? There’s no Prescott Bush in her bloodline. Palin will loot only as much as she can stash in a Winnebago. Then she’ll apply herself to her spiritual calling. She’s no Tammy Faye. To my mind, Palin’s religiosity is sufficiently extreme to appear genuine.
There may of course remain Halliburton machinations behind Palin’s flirty church lady. But the oligarchs’ growing mendacity, combined with Sarah Palin’s small-minded zealotry, could bring Fascist America beyond the pale. I think the GOP legacy could finally close the book on our nation’s Democracy fable. If we survive it, the Republicans will be gone for good.
I’m with Jacques‘ election 2008 slogan:
GOP IN 2008, GONE FOREVER IN 2012, WORTH THE RISK.
Barack Obama has had ample opportunity to articulate a different program than George Bush and McCain’s foreign policy of continual war, militarism, and imperialism yet failed to do so. But still possibly some redeeming of his character and political program was possible in regards to domestic issues? However he has completely failed that test, too, and has shown no signs of opposing any of the Bush-McCain agenda to transfer the colossal private debt of America’s private financial institutions onto the Federal Budget itself. In short, he too favors bankrupting the American people as a whole by saddling the American tax payer with private debt run up by the super rich economic elites of our country.
What we have seen is a turn from ‘trickle down’ theorizing by the bought and paid for talking heads of media and business to an open assault on the American people that we should all call and label the Flood Up Economic Doctrine. Instead of just ‘socialism’ for the military industrial complex, we now will see ‘socialism’ being advocated and put into place for the Military industrial financial complex. None of this is socialism, of course, but rather is nothing more than corporate welfare provided by from the money of workers the capitalist class exploits.
Barack Obama is a pig in liberal lipstick here. In fact, women do like him and give more than twice the amount to his campaign as they do to the other campaign with bright red lipstick, the McCain-Palin louts. But there is nothing different about these two groupings, except the label branding. Barack Obama, too, will give away public money to bail out the super rich, though in fact, they will merely sink the American public and provide no real ‘bailout’ at all.
Vote for Obama hoping for some different policies, but it appears that you will become quickly disappointed. It is most probably that Obama and the Democrats will move into the White House, if only because the branding of the McCain ticket is having to cover up the ugliest pig with lipstick on of them all. They are having to paint lipstick on George W. Bush, and that is a sorry sight to the American public by now. Look for further signs of electrical economic collapse in the Whither Forecast for tomorrow.
USA Bankrupt! Bush to spend $1 TRILLION to bail out Wall Street, so the filthy rich won’t lose a dime, and middle America is left holding the bag. Even the Robber Barrons of a hundred years ago would blush at the heist that is now going on. And, of course, the Democrats are goose-stepping right behind him.
The Big Whisper: What’s Up With John McCain? Is he more of a candidate for the Alzheimers ward?
McCain says he would fire SEC chairman. That’s like saying he would fire the janitor because the principal took away all his cleaning supplies. And McCain “the Deregulator” is the principal. Oh, and never mind that the president doesn’t have the authority to fire him. Maybe McCain is planning more of a dictatorship, than a presidency?
Barack Obama responded by telling voters:
“This comment was so out of touch that even George Bush’s White House couldn’t agree with it when they were asked about it. They had to distance themselves from John McCain! … 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.”
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Sept 19 notes, thomasmc.com.
Democratic party-tied websites are spouting much the same analysis of the current economic crisis, which is simply that in their point of view, capitalism is great, it just needs ‘regulation.’ Give us a break, People!
The US Capitalist System is greatly regulated and you guys backed a political party that helped regulate it, in league with the other party. Liberal Democratic Party voters seemingly want us to forget that their party has regulated The System for a century PLUS now! And once again, their regulation has produced chaos and uncertainly.
It takes a lot of gall to demand something that your politics have been doing all along, which is that we ‘regulate’ the economy! What is really being demanded now by your Party leadership is more tinkering through the same old regulations, instead of proposing something different. It is your regulation that is every bit as much the cause of where the US economic system is today, as under the regulation of the Republicans. Alan Greenspan was your dog as well as theirs!
The regulatory system was basically to have the companies police themselves, and this was a policy of the Democrats every much as much as it was of the Republicans. A capitalist supporting government will simply turn over all regulation to its own corporate leaders. To propose that a capitalist government do something else is utterly meaningless.
So shout out ‘Regulation’ all you want, and it will not lead to anything than what was already being done, and is being done at this moment. The thieves will regulate themselves unless that power is taken away from them, something that the Democratic Party utterly opposes.
For decades, Republicans cried that Democrats were the problem. If only the voters would give the GOP control over the White House and Congress, they would fix everything. End pork-barrel spending, balance the budget, get the gov’t out of our private lives. In 2002, the voters took them up on it, and today the country is on the verge of collapse. And the Republicans have the nerve to try and blame the Democrats for it. Are Americans really that stupid? I guess we’ll find out in November.
NBC News exposes Palin’s lies. I guess they probably shouldn’t have demonized the “liberal” media at the convention, huh?
AP refuses to comply with SS demand that they turn over all copies of emails hacked from Palin’s hacked email account. The last I heard, this was still the USA, where Bush’s thugs don’t get to censor news they don’t like.
John McCain knows that lobbyists are what’s wrong with Washington. That’s why he hired EIGHTY THREE to run his campaign!
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Sept 18 notes, thomasmc.com.
Dick Cheney lied to Republican House Majority Leader Dick Army, claiming Iraq had a “mini-nuke.”
McCain campaign threatens to “disappear” Carly Fiorina, who said neither McCain nor Palin could run a corporation.
CNN calls McCain/Palin campaign on their myriad of lies. [video]
Scaredycrats vote to allow offshore drilling.
Accountability is for Democrats. McCain’s lawyers trying to quash investigation into Palin’s ethics violations.
McCain campaign sent out 1 million fake absentee ballots to Democrats in Ohio.
Federal takeover of AIG planned.
Did you hear the one about the RNC (Family Values Party) delegate who picked up a hooker, and she robbed him of $150,000?
It’s the economy, stupid. Duh.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Sept 17 notes, thomasmc.com.
Like a carefully choreographed play, accusations by the police that they have uncovered shit and urine stockpiles by protesters has been their routine to cover up their actions at both the Democratic and Republican Party Conventions. By making these false accusations in the press, the police and politicians hope to cover up their own shitty actions against lawful protesters. What they are actually trying to do is make political dissidents in the US out to be of the same stripe as common criminals in the police torture chamber prisons around the US, thus justifying their overkill storm-trooper presence these last two weeks. Thus helping tear up all our legal protections and rights.
Sorry, Guys, it won’t work. To the world it looks like American police and government are of the same stripe as what we saw on TV in Beijing, China. Smart, Dudes! American police may still have the support of the conservatized American population as a whole, but this support will ebb if you keep these actions up for much longer.
Of note is that Denver’s Democratic Party mayor, John Hickenlooper, has joined with St. Paul’s Democratic Party mayor, Chris Coleman, in backing up these police smears in the press. The Denver Post today ran this piece of police disinformation backed up by the DP mayor of the city… Mayor: Protesters hid feces and tools Yeah, right! The real poop in bags being hidden is that of the mayor and police.
When are Democratic Party liberals going to hold their party accountable for acting like the Republicans, on behalf of the Republicans, and on behalf of abusive national policing policies? Many of you DP voting liberals are among the group of protesters being smeared with dishonest shit by these false accusations by Democratic Party mayors, so why do you take it? Shame on you and your party! All you can seem to do is scream about Sarah Palin. Democrats, you are a pathetic lot indeed. Cop talking shit!
Just like in Denver, the Minnesota Democratic Party is now encouraging an excessive police presence plus police violence against protesters, but this time at the Republican Party convention! Here is Chris Coleman, the DP mayor of St. Paul, praising the police violence in that city Below is an excerpt from press coverage by the Minneapolis paper…
‘St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman praised officers for showing restraint and said a small number of law-breaking demonstrators marred what started as a peaceful day of free speech.
“Their efforts were nothing short of heroic,” Coleman said. “They did not fail. They did not take the bait. We’ve done what we could to offer unprecedented access so peoples’ voices could be heard. Unfortunately, very small handful of individuals decided to break the law.”
St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington said the trouble makers came from a half-dozen loosely organized groups totaling up to 180 people, representing a small fraction of the massive turnout Monday.’
Yeah sure, Mayor. And just what are these small group of people doing that merits turning out the National Guard in addition to the already massive police presence in your city? What a bunch of crap, and the whole Democratic Party shares responsibilty for this police state atmosphere everywhere today in America.
It’s a fact that the Democrats treated the protesters with as much contempt as the GOP, it’s obvious their promise of change is just an empty slogan. If they really meant it, they would have embraced the protesters, and used them to point out the need for change, instead of treating them as terrorist suspects for questioning the status quo.
John McCain’s lies about Katrina.
Cindy McCain’s sister says she’s voting for Obama. “I wouldn’t vote for John McCain if he was a Democrat. I would not vote at all before I’d vote for him.”
Pandering to die-hard Clintonistas, McCain picks Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for VP. I wonder how many Conservatives would actually vote to put a woman a heart beat away from the Oval Office, with McCain as old as he is?
Oh, and she’s under ethics investigation for abuse of power. No wonder he chose her.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes Aug 29, thomasmc.com.
DENVER- NOW! Have you seen any “violence” from the anti-corporate party protesters? Have you got a “nonviolent” voice to lend? Get up to Denver! Help us show the head-honcho Democrats for the corporate frauds they are! What are you sheep-headed ninnies waiting for? November 6th? They’ve shown us what a police state looks like, we have to show them what Democracy looks like! Need directions? Denver, Pepsi Center, the surrounding hotels and restaurants. Do it!
Democratic Party making it clear they want a fascist police state even more than the GOP. Only violence at demonstrations by neofascist, jackbooted cops. I hope the City of Denver loses many millions of dollars in lawsuits for violating the Constitutional rights of protesters. And the Democrats lose many millions of votes for their complicity in these crimes against the Constitution of the United States of America. (Excerpted from thomasmc.com Aug 26.)