A friend sent this to me earlier and I have been UNABLE to stop laughing at it.
Fox News went into Eastern Pennsylvania to find out what the regular folks of small town America think of the Presidential candidates. The anchor asked the people at this diner who they would be voting for and manages to find a "Split Decision" that doesn't look to be all that split.
Um. Gee...looks to me like they were all voting for Obama. The one guy who was going to vote for Mccain was completely shot down by his wife! And when it was time to raise his hand for Obama, he finally did the right thing!
Meanwhile, everyone else in the diner was voting for Obama and you can hear them LAUGHING after the idiot from Fox News describes it as a "split".
Palin undercuts McCain and his message posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 2:28 PM
Katie Couric, in a segment to air tonight, asks Palin about her joke that she's been listening to Joe Biden's speeches since second grade, and whether that isn't an odd thing to say given her own running mate's age:
Oh no, it's nothing negative at all. He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years.
BooHoo: Nancy hurt my feelings posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 1:26 PM
Poll: GOP blamed for failed bailout
Respondents to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll blame Republicans over Democrats by more than a two-to-one margin for Monday's failed vote on the $700 billion bailout package.
The poll, conducted Monday evening after the vote, reported 44 percent of respondents said the GOP is "mainly responsible" for the failed deal. Twenty-one percent blamed Democrats while 17 percent said the two parties share equal blame. The survey interviewed 424 registered voters and has a five percent margin of error.
Forty-seven percent of those polled oppose the bailout while 45 percent said they support it. Only a slim majority, 51 percent, expressed confidence that the proposed bailout would prevent the current financial crisis from getting worse.
But while Americans are split over the bailout, a vast majority, 88 percent, said the failed vote "could lead to a more severe economic decline."
Republicans eating their own posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 7:53 AM
Palin's (Conservative) Problem?
Even as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin prepares for Thursday night's vice presidential debate against Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, an increasing number of Republicans and conservatives are expressing reservations about both her candidacy and the way in which she is being used (or not used) by John McCain's campaign.
The trouble began late last week with what was widely seen as a disastrous Palin interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric in which the vice presidential nominee was barely intelligible on relatively basic questions of foreign policy. (Is it just us or has Couric been kicking butt in the last few weeks? It isn't just us; the Post's Howie Kurtz seems to agree.)
That "performance" was -- luckily for the McCain campaign -- largely drowned out by coverage of the ongoing fight on Capitol Hill over the bailout of the country's financial institutions.
But, it did not go entirely unnoticed particularly by several prominent conservative opinion makers.
Kathleen Parker penned a column on Friday in which she asserted: "As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem."
"If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true."
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who many within the establishment of the GOP saw as the smartest choice as vice president, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that:
"Holding Sarah Palin to just three interviews and microscopically focusing on each interview I think has been a mistake, I think they'd be a lot wiser to let Sarah Palin be Sarah Palin. Let her talk to the media, let her talk to people."
Bill Kristol, in his column for the New York Times echoed that sentiment.
"McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her -- aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House," wrote Kristol.
McGrampy has lost it posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 6:11 AM
McCain at dead end as House rejects bailout plan
Republican John McCain has maneuvered himself into a political dead end and has five weeks to find his way out.
Last Wednesday, McCain suspended his presidential campaign to insert himself into a $700 billion effort to rescue America's crumbling financial structure. In so doing, he tied himself far more tightly to the bill than did his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.
.....
The implication: that he played a critical role in building bipartisan support for the unprecedented bailout.
.....
Both he and Obama had insisted the plan originally proposed by the Bush administration be strengthened with greater oversight and regulation.
Within hours, however, the measure died in the House mainly at the hands of McCain's own Republicans.
Initially, McCain went silent, choosing instead to send his chief economic adviser out with a statement that blamed Obama, claiming that the first-term Illinois senator had put his political ambitions ahead of the good of the country.
"This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country," McCain senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said.
It wasn't long, however, before McCain told reporters in Iowa: "Now is not the time to fix the blame, it's time to fix the problem."
All in all, McCain might have been better served by staying out of the mess and above the fray.
How about "VP Camp?" posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 2:53 PM
Palin heads to 'debate camp' in Arizona
As some prominent conservatives begin to raise the question of whether Sarah Palin should remain on the Republican presidential ticket - and others call for her to be given more public exposure in a bid to reverse falling poll numbers - the McCain campaign is bringing the Alaska governor to John McCain's Sedona ranch for several days of intense debate prep.
Senior campaign advisor Steve Schmidt and other top officials met Palin in Philadelphia Sunday night, and are traveling with her and McCain to a Columbus, Ohio event Monday morning. The group then heads to Arizona.
The original plan was for Palin to prepare in St. Louis, where the vice presidential debate will be held Thursday. Instead, she has already been preparing in a Philadelphia hotel for four days with advisors. She will now get ready for the debate at McCain's rustic creek-side home - what a top aide calls "debate camp."
The aide, who's part of the team prepping Palin, tells CNN they decided to take her to debate camp there because it is an "invigorating and enjoyable place to prepare for Thursday."
"SP [Sarah Palin] loves it, and has her kids and Todd coming," wrote the aide in an e-mail, and that "John McCain himself came up with the idea."
Heckuva job, Bushie! posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 2:23 PM
Dow slammed, posts worst-ever point decline
Fear swept across the financial markets Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average posting its worst point decline ever, after the government's financial bailout package failed to survive a vote in the House.
Wall Street started tumbling in afternoon trading as the vote was shown on TV Monday afternoon, sending investors fled to the safety of the credit markets, worrying that the financial system would now keep sinking under the weight of failed mortgage debt.
The Dow closed the day down 777.68 points, or 6.89 percent, beating its previous record for an intraday drop of 721.56 points, set during the first trading day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Still, in percentage terms, the decline remained well below the more than 20 percent drops seen on Black Monday of October 1987 and the Depression.
"This is panic, and fear is running amok," one trader told CNBC. "We are in a classic financial meltdown, and it's panic-based. We're seeing panic selling."
The site will redirect you specifically to a video intro by Gov. Sarah Palin at JohnMcCain.com if you are hitting it for the first time. Note that the redirect sends you first to JohnMcCain.com and THEN to Palin.htm (Palin's Video Intro) if you're visiting for the first time, or if your cookies are cleared, or if you're not accepting cookies.
- URL Registered within ~36 hours of McCain's Decision to select Palin as running mate - Redirect sends users specifically to a palin.htm file, but only on the FIRST redirect - Whois Privacy Information Matches JohnMcCain.com Whois Privacy - URL Held by same registrar - Note that the .net and .org versions also redirect to the McCain Campaign Website. Network Tools.com Trace Route: - 64.203.107.149 (VoteForTheMILF.com) - 64.203.107.149 (JohnMcCain.com)
-As of 3:35 PM EDT The redirect has been changed to direct users to google.com -As of 3:49 PM EDT The redirect has been changed to direct users to a Wikipedia page about domain registration.
The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry.
Stocks started plummeting on Wall Street even before 228-205 to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.
Even as the electronic roll call began, Democratic and Republican leaders were uncertain about having enough votes to pass the politically unpopular plan. It's the most sweeping government intervention in markets since the Great Depression.
The bailout would have put in place an unprecedented federal program to buy up rotten assets from cash-starved firms. The goal is to free up choked credit that was threatening to cause broader market turmoil.
"Many of us feel that the national interest requires us to do something which is, in many ways, unpopular," said Rep. Barney Frank, the Financial Services Committee chairman, before the vote. "It is hard to get political credit for avoiding something that has not yet happened."
No more horse race posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 5:59 AM
Obama increases lead over McCain slightly since debate
Democrat Barack Obama has made strides in convincing Americans that he can handle the toughest challenges facing the country, including the financial meltdown and international crises, according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey taken after Friday's presidential debate.
The poll of registered voters who watched the first showdown in Oxford, Miss., also showed a slight increase in Obama's lead over Republican John McCain.
The Illinois senator extended his advantage to 49% to 44%, compared with last week, when the same respondents gave him a 48% to 45% edge.
-----
Though more voters still see McCain as more knowledgeable, Obama was seen as more "presidential" by 46% of debate-watchers, compared with 33% for the Arizona senator.
The difference is even more pronounced among debate-watchers who were not firmly committed to a candidate: 44% said they believed Obama looked more presidential, whereas 16% gave McCain the advantage.
-----
After the debate, 43% of registered voters who saw the event said Obama had more "honesty and integrity," compared with 34% for McCain. A week ago, the same voters were evenly divided, with each candidate winning the trust of 40% of respondents.
Good thing he suspended his campaign and rushed back to Washington posted by
Wally 7:24 AM
After making such a big show of "rushing back to Washington" - even blowing off Letterman to do so because it was so urgent (well, not really, but that's what he told Dave before rushing to his interview with Katie Couric, and then back to his hotel for the night, and then eventually the next day back to Washington), one might think John McCain would spend most of his waking hours on Capital Hill working to find a solution to the economic crisis. After all, he claims the crisis is so urgent that it is threatening to destroy America and cause mass hysteria and riots and earthquakes and plagues and locusts and fire to rain down from the heavens.
One would be wrong. He's been hanging out at home, chatting on the phone and texting his bff's.
After interrupting his presidential campaign to come back to Washington on Thursday morning to try to push forward a $700 billion bailout deal, Mr. McCain remained in his condominium in Arlington, Va., until 12:30 p.m. Saturday, when he emerged and made a one-minute trip in his motorcade to his campaign headquarters around the corner.
By mid-afternoon, Mr. McCain's closest adviser, Mark Salter, told reporters that Mr. McCain would not go to Capitol Hill on Saturday but would make phone calls to try to push the deal along. "He's calling members on both sides, talking to people in the administration, helping out as he can," Mr. Salter said.
Asked why Mr. McCain did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington to help with negotiations, Mr. Salter replied that "he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone."
Apparently, he just learned about this new technology since Thursday.
McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry
Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.
A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party's evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.
The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain's campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world's second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain's current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain's affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress.
As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America's casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.
McCain Aide's Husband Headed Trade Group Lobbying on Bailout
It looks there's another John McCain adviser with a personal background that doesn't exactly jibe with the candidate's recent effort to portray himself as a populist crusader for ordinary folks.
Last week in Green Bay, McCain declared: "At the center of the problem were the lobbyists, politicians, and bureaucrats who succeeded in persuading Congress and the administration to ignore the festering problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."
Of course, as Barack Obama has pointed out, McCain's campaign is a virtual who's who of former lobbyists for Fannie and Freddie.
But another McCain adviser has close personal ties to one of the industries that, like Fannie and Freddie, spent too long assuring the public that the housing market was in good health, and thereby forestalling efforts that might have protected homeowners and staved off a crisis.
A national poll of people who watched the first presidential debate suggests that Barack Obama came out on top, but there was overwhelming agreement that both Obama and John McCain would be able to handle the job of president if elected.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey is not a measurement of the views of all Americans, since only people who watched the debate were questioned and the audience included more Democrats than Republicans.
Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Obama did the better job in Friday night's debate, while 38 percent said John McCain did better.
Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks, with 59 percent calling him the night's winner, while just 31 percent said McCain won.
Foreign leaders from three continents this week provided Gov. Sarah Palin with personal tutorials on world affairs, exchanging views on everything from international security to Alaskan energy policies. But they also sought to show they weren't taking sides in the American election contest, going out of their way to tell reporters how much they think of Sen. Joseph Biden.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili showered praise on Biden, saying he played a little known role in advising the government on how it should respond to Russian intervention last month. "There were lots of people calling me," he said at a breakfast hosted by Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Biden and Holbrooke, he said, "were two people that made lots of difference on the ground."
Saakashvili said Biden called him two days after Russian troops entered Georgia and proposed a series of "very concrete things we should do." He said Biden came up with the idea -- later approved by the Bush Administration -- to provide a $1 billion grant to Georgia to get back on its feet, and that he also outlined a series of laws designed to punish Russia, including legislation that would "go after corrupt Russian officials."
The effusive praise appeared in part to show that Saakashvili had friends in America's two major political camps. Until recently, the Georgian leader had been perceived as close to Sen. John McCain, a sharp critic of Russia's military intervention of Georgia. Earlier this year, Georgia signed a $200,000 contract with a lobbying firm owned by McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann.
Sick, sick, sick, sick! posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 1:45 PM
WAMU CEO bags $20 million for 17 days of work
Washington Mutual Inc.'s new CEO, Alan Fishman, will be eligible for at least $12.65 million or more in salary and bonuses next year, the company said Thursday in a securities filing.
Fishman, who replaced Kerry Killinger as CEO on Monday, also received a $7.5 million signing bonus for joining the company, according to a regulatory filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Add another to the growing grumble... posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 1:37 PM
Palin should step down, conservative commentator says
Prominent conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, an early supporter of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, said Friday recent interviews have shown the Alaska governor is "out of her league" and should leave the GOP presidential ticket for the good of the party.
The criticism in Parker's Friday column is the latest in a recent string of negative assessments toward the McCain-Palin candidacy from prominent conservatives.
It was fun while it lasted," Parker writes. "Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who is clearly out of her league."
.....
"If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself," Parker also writes. "If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman - and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket - we are reluctant to say what is painfully true."
Republican John McCain agreed to attend the first presidential debate Friday night even though Congress doesn't have a bailout deal, reversing an earlier decision to delay the event until Washington had taken action to address the crisis.
With less than 10 hours until the debate was scheduled to start, the McCain campaign announced that the Arizona senator would travel to the University of Mississippi. The campaign said that afterward McCain would fly back to Washington to continue working on the financial crisis.
Obama had always planned to attend the debate and was onboard his plane preparing to take off when McCain's announcement was made.
The McCain campaign's statement said he was optimistic that there has been progress toward a bipartisan agreement. But earlier in the week, McCain said he would delay the debate "until we have taken action to address this crisis."
"He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations," the McCain campaign said in a statement.
It was a different position than McCain had taken Wednesday, when he announced, "I'm directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis."
This is what got us in this mess posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 6:18 AM
The Republican alternatives to the Paulson bailout
The "agreement in principle" on a $700-billion mortgage bailout turned pretty quickly into a disagreement Thursday night as House Republicans revolted. Not being a Capitol Hill Kremlinologist, I can't really tell you how significant this is: This summer's big housing bill was opposed by 149 of 199 House Republicans, and that sure didn't stop it. What I can offer a halfway informed opinion on is whether the two Republican counterproposals floating around make any sense.
One, that of the House Republican Study Committee, seems to be a joke. It calls for a two-year suspension of the capital gains tax to "encourag corporations to sell unwanted assets." But the toxic mortgage securities clogging up bank balance sheets are worth less now than when they were acquired. Meaning that no capital gains tax would be owed on them anyway. If you repealed the tax, banks would have even less incentive to sell them because they wouldn't be able use the losses to offset capital gains elsewhere. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?
Eric Cantor, the Republican chief deputy whip, has a more reasonable-sounding if still pretty vague plan to insure more mortgages rather than buy mortgage securities. Taxpayers already explicitly insure several hundred billion dollars worth of mortgages (it was $400 billion at the end of FY 2007, but I imagine it's a lot more by now) through the Federal Housing Administration, and have now also taken responsibility for the $5+ trillion in mortgages held or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Add a couple trillion dollars of troubled private-label mortgages to that, and you don't have the big up-front expense or direct government involvement in the banking system that the Paulson plan calls for. Cantor also seems to think Wall Street would pay the premiums on the insurance (with FHA-insured loans, homeowners pay the premiums).
Even for a party whose president suffers dismal approval ratings, whose legislative wing lost control of Congress and whose presidential nominee trails in the polls, it was a remarkably bad day for Republicans.
A White House summit meeting on Thursday meant to shore up John McCain's shaky campaign ''devolved into a contentious shouting match.'' And that's how McCain's own campaign described it.
The meeting revealed that President Bush's $700 billion bid to combat the worst financial crisis in decades had been suddenly sidetracked by fellow Republicans in the House, who refused to embrace a plan that appeared close to acceptance by the Senate and most House Democrats.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson begged Democratic participants not to disclose how badly the meeting had gone, dropping to one knee in a teasing way to make his point according to witnesses.
And when Paulson hastily tried to revive talks in a nighttime meeting near the Senate chamber, the House's top Republican refused to send a negotiator.
"This is the president's own party," said Rep. Barney Frank, a top Democratic negotiator who attended both meetings. "I don't think a president has been repudiated so strongly by the congressional wing of his own party in a long time."
Why the polls are wrong posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 1:48 PM
Omitting cell phone users may affect polls
People with only cell phones may differ enough from those with landline telephones that excluding the growing population of cell-only users from public opinion polls may slightly skew the results, a study has concluded.
The finding, in a report this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, may increase pressure on polling organizations to include people who use only cell phones in their surveys. While many major polls including The Associated Press-GfK Poll already interview cell phone users, some do not, largely because doing so is more expensive.
Earlier studies - including a joint Pew-AP report two years ago - concluded that cell and landline users had similar enough views that not calling cell users had no major impact on poll findings. The new report concludes that "this assumption is increasingly questionable," especially for young people, who use cells heavily.
Combining polls it conducted in August and September, Pew found that of people under age 30 with only cell phones, 62 percent were Democrats and 28 percent Republicans. Among landline users the same age that gap was narrower: 54 percent Democrats, 36 percent GOP.
Similarly, young cell users preferred Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain by 35 percentage points. For young landline users, it was a smaller 13-point Obama edge.
Please don't make me debate Biden! Please! posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 11:54 AM
McCain camp to propose postponing VP debate
McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.
In this scenario, the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined, and take place in Oxford, Mississippi, currently slated to be the site of the first presidential faceoff this Friday.
Graham says the McCain camp is well aware of the position of the Obama campaign and the debate commission that the debate should go on as planned - but both he and another senior McCain adviser insist the Republican nominee will not go to the debate Friday if there's no deal on the bailout.
Can't be a "Maverick" today posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 11:45 AM
Lawmakers: Financial bailout agreement reached
Warned that time was running short to bolster the distressed economy, congressional Republicans and Democrats reported agreement in principle Thursday on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, and said they would present it to the Bush administration in hopes of a vote within days.
Emerging from a two-hour negotiating session, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said, "We are very confident that we can act expeditiously."
"I now expect that we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate (and) be signed by the president," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.
The bipartisan consensus on the general direction of the legislation was reported just hours before President Bush was to host presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain and congressional leaders at the White House for discussions on how to clear obstacles to the unpopular rescue plan.
Key lawmakers said at midday that few difficulties actually remained.
"There really isn't much of a deadlock to break," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Chinese regulators have told domestic banks to stop interbank lending to U.S. financial institutions to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.
The Hong Kong newspaper cited unidentified industry sources as saying the instruction from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) applied to interbank lending of all currencies to U.S. banks but not to banks from other countries.
In the first economic reading from the period since the Wall Street crisis erupted, a government report Thursday showed initial unemployment claims rose last week much more than expected.
According to a study by the Department of Labor, initial filings for state jobless benefits increased by a seasonally adjusted 32,000 to 493,000 in the third week of September. It was the highest number of weekly claims since Sept. 29, 2001, when unemployment soared in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com was 450,000.
"The labor market is very weak," said Mark Vitner, an economist for Wachovia. "Layoffs have ticked up for the last two months, and there has been a slowdown in hiring, so we haven't been able to absorb new entrants into the workforce."
The director of the Congressional Budget Office said yesterday that the proposed Wall Street bailout could actually worsen the current financial crisis.
During testimony before the House Budget Committee, Peter R. Orszag -- Congress's top bookkeeper -- said the bailout could expose the way companies are stowing toxic assets on their books, leading to greater problems.
"Ironically, the intervention could even trigger additional failures of large institutions, because some institutions may be carrying troubled assets on their books at inflated values," Orszag said in his testimony. "Establishing clearer prices might reveal those institutions to be insolvent."
In an interview later yesterday, Orszag explained using the following example: Suppose a company has Asset X, whose value is recorded on the books as $100. Because of the current economic decline, Asset X's real value has dropped to $50. If the company takes part in the government bailout and sells Asset X for $50, the company has to report a $50 loss on its books. On a scale of millions of dollars, such write-downs could ruin a company.
Such companies "look solvent today only because it's kind of hidden," Orszag said. "They actually are insolvent" already, he said.
Will wonders never cease? posted by
Clyde 10:27 AM
Palin won't reveal her finances until after debate
Sarah Palin requested and received an extension of the deadline for revealing her personal finances, until the day after her only debate with Democrat Joe Biden.
The Republican vice presidential candidate received a four-day extension Thursday from the Federal Election Commission.
The federal financial disclosure report was initially due next Monday. Now, Palin has until Oct. 3, the day after her debate in St. Louis with Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Earlier this month, Biden released a decade of personal financial records that showed the veteran U.S. senator from Delaware earned less than many of his congressional colleagues. For example, Biden and his wife, Jill, earned $319,853 in 2007. On Thursday, Biden submitted an updated report to the Federal Election Commission
You can't bail being President posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 6:28 AM
McCain Suspends Democracy
Lincoln ran for office in 1864, when there was a good chance he wouldn't have a country to lead. FDR ran for office in the middle of the largest conflict in human history--twice. We can have a debate this Friday.
Instead, McCain is going to "suspend" the democratic process? And this from a man who prides himself on his Commander-in-Chief skills? How is calling quits amid a crisis as severe as 9/11, in human security terms, a measure of his leadership strength?
Bush and McCain, linked again at the hip, are telling this nation which seeks confidence and hope: You have nothing to fear but the end of fear itself. McCain has bailed out from the responsibilities demanded of a Presidential candidate who claims to be a leader. Bush looked like the dog in that never-to-be-forgotten National Lampoon cover with dog, gun pointed at his head. Propped up at single digit ratings delivering a speech, the worst President in our history was sent out there to scare Americans and prop up a man he smeared two election cycles ago.
The people of this nation don't need more showboating, fearmongering and ducking for cover. They need a plan which will treat Main Street with dignity, respect and equity. McCain's desperate sprint to Washington only exposes how the pinstripers in pitchforks are scared. (As CNN's Anderson Cooper reported tonight , McCain has missed more votes than any other senator this year.)
There is blame to go around. The Nation's special forum on the bailout this week lays out ideas about how to extricate this good country from a financial disaster with bipartisan parents. But McCain's low road showboating is nothing but a way to put his political fate ahead of his country's in order to divert and distract attention from his failing campaign. We deserve better.
He's not ready to debate posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 6:22 AM
First Debate Up in Air as McCain Steps Off the Trail
Declaring that it was time to "set politics aside," Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he would temporarily stop campaigning and seek to delay Friday's debate with Senator Barack Obama to return to Washington to help forge an agreement on a proposed $700 billion bailout of financial institutions before Congress.
.....
The debate on Friday was to focus on Mr. McCain's perceived strength, foreign policy. Mr. McCain had not planned to devote large blocks of time to debate practice as did Mr. Obama, who was holing up with a tight circle of advisers at a hotel in Clearwater, Fla., on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to prepare. Mr. McCain had a preparatory session on Wednesday afternoon at the Morgan Library in Manhattan, but advisers said it had been interrupted by his decision, announced immediately afterward, to suspend his campaign.
Democrats were withering in their reaction to Mr. McCain's decision.
"Now that we are on the verge of making a deal, John McCain airdrops himself in to help us make a deal," said Representative Barney Frank, of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. "Frankly, we are going to have to interrupt a negotiating session tomorrow between Democrats and Republicans on a bill where I think we are getting pretty close to troop down to the White House for a photo op."
"What, does McCain think the Senate will still be working at 9 p.m. Friday?" Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said in an interview, referring to the scheduled start time of the debate. "I think this is all political."
Ding dong, I'm a dumbazz posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 7:59 PM
Palin: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.
Couric: I'm just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.
Palin: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you.
So didGeorge! posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 2:15 PM
Laura Bush says Palin lacks foreign policy experience
First Lady Laura Bush told CNN Wednesday Sarah Palin lacks experience in foreign policy, but quickly added the Alaska governor is "a very quick study."
Asked by CNN's Zain Verjee if she thought Palin's resume included sufficient foreign policy experience, Bush said, "Of course she doesn't have that."
"You know, that's not been her role," she continued, "But I think she is a very quick study, and fortunately John McCain does have that sort of experience."
The McCain campaign has pointed to Palin's gubernatorial service as head of the Alaska's National Guard, part of which is deployed in Iraq, as experience in foreign policy. ...
The Maverick is a pussy posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 2:10 PM
McCain seeks to delay debate to focus on economy
Republican John McCain said Wednesday he wants to delay Friday's debate with Democratic rival Barack Obama and temporarily put aside their partisan campaign to resolve the nation's financial crisis.
McCain's announcement came after the two candidates held private talks about joining forces to address the Wall Street meltdown. The Obama campaign said the Democrat initiated the talks, but McCain beat Obama to the punch with the first public statement calling for the two to rise above politics in a time of crisis.
McCain said the Bush administration's plan seemed headed for defeat and a bipartisan solution was urgently needed.
McCain said he would put politics aside and return to Washington Thursday to focus on the nation's financial problems after addressing former President Clinton's Global Initiative session in New York. McCain said he wants President Bush to convene a leadership meeting in Washington that would include him and Obama.
"It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration's proposal," McCain said. "I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time."
The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
While President George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.
Campbell Brown Rips McCain posted by
Dookie The Webmaster 6:24 AM
A prominent female news anchor chastised the McCain campaign Tuesday evening for engaging in sexism and insulting behavior in its attempt to shield Gov. Sarah Palin from members of the press.
In a fiery commentary, Campbell Brown laid into John McCain for casting a "chauvinistic chain" that ran over his running mate. Punctuated by a call to "Free Sarah Palin," the CNN anchor highlighted the attempt Tuesday by the McCain campaign to ban editorial reporters from covering Palin's visit with world leaders at the UN, as yet another gender-demeaning move in a campaign highlighted by sexist behavior.
"Tonight I call on the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment," said Brown. "This woman is from Alaska for crying out loud. She is strong. She is tough. She is confident. And you claim she is ready to be one heart beat away form the presidency. If that is the case, then end this chauvinistic treatment of her now. Allow her to show her stuff. Allow her to face down those pesky reporters... Let her have a real news conference with real questions. By treating Sarah Palin different from the other candidates in this race, you are not showing her the respect she deserves.
