text:
But it led us to ask...Who is the current Surgeon General of the United
TRICK QUESTION! There is none.
TRICK ANSWER! Well, there is an ACTING Surgeon General,
Rear Admiral Steven K. Galson.
Rear Adm Galson was appointed Acting Surgeon General when
the previous Surgeon General,
Vice Admiral Richard Carmona,
left office at the expiration of his term on July 31, 2006. Rear
Adm. Galson took office October 2007. So for about 14 months the
US didn't have any Surgeon General at all, and since October 2007
an Acting Surgeon General.
So why did Vice Adm. Richard Carmona leave office?
After leaving office Carmona was very critical of the Bush administration
accusing it of suppressing scientific findings which conflicted with
the Bush administration's ideological agenda.
Wow. What was that about?
Carmona released a Surgeon General's report asserting that the
health effects of secondhand tobacco smoke were clear.
"The debate is over. The
science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious
health hazard."
The Bush administration pressured him not to testify in the tobacco
industry's racketeering trials.
"Carmona accused the Bush Administration of preventing him from speaking out on
certain public health issues such as embryonic stem cell research, global
climate change,[7] emergency contraception, and abstinence-only education,
where the Administration's political stance conflicted with scientific and
medical opinion" according to his Wikipedia page, referencing this
New York Times article.
More from that article:
Countdown to Obama Inauguration
, as of this moment 13 days, 2 hours, 51 minutes, 58 seconds.
We can't hold our breath that long but we sure wish we could!
Whitman was a big supporter of Mitt Romney when he ran for the
republican presidential nomination often appearing on talking heads
shows and serving on his "National Finance Team".
When McCain got the nod and Romney dropped out she campaigned for
McCain and he said she would be his top pick for Treasury Secretary
should he win which as we all know he didnt so she wasn't. Whitman
became national co-chair for McCain's presidential campaign. She
also spoke at the Republican National Committee meeting about
the prospects of a McCain presidency.
Whitman asked fellow Mormon Romney to help
arrange an audition
for her for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir but it never happened, or hasn't
thus far. Apparently she has ambitions as a singer.
She has never held elected office but then again neither had
Schwarzeneggar before becoming California governor.
It's difficult to forecast what the political landscape might look
like in 2010 but right now the mood in California is probably not
very favorable to republicans. Besides having just handed democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama a significant victory (60%/8.2M v.
36.5%/5M) for McCain California is currently going through an
economic budget crisis, huge foreclosure rates, and other pains
widel associated with the recent dominance of republicans
in politics.
But 2010 is a long way off and gubernatorial elections often
ride as much on who the candidates are as they do on issues.
Other potential republican
candidates for 2010 include
former Congressman Tom Cambell, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina,
state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, and 2002 gubernatorial
candidate, businessman, and Rudy Giuliani supporter Bill Simon.
Some democratic names include former Governor and
current Attorney General Jerry Brown, State Controller
John Chiang, Senator and former San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein,
Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, San Francisco Mayor Gavin
Newscom, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell,
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and businessman and
former State Controller Steve Westly.
Those are crowded fields but the election is nearly two years away.
Incumbent Norm Coleman has 7 days to file a challenge in court.
The fiercely republican Wall Street Journal thinks
something funny is going on but can't quite put their
finger on it. Oh well, they wrote an op-ed piece anyhow.
Meanwhile, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) has
vowed to block Franken's seating, by filibuster if necessary.
We say CONGRATULATIONS AL!.
And to the sore-loser republicans: Face it, your party's problem
isn't procedural details in Minnesota or elsewhere, it's your
failed policies and support for a disasterous presidency.
This country has serious problems for Congress and the new President
to deal with. The economy is beyond precarious and may be in free-fall.
Entire major industries are going bankrupt. We have two wars, one
of which, in Iraq, seems to have long passed its expiration date.
There is a violent crisis in Gaza which the United States can be
very influential in settling. The new Obama administration needs
Senate confirmations for several top-level cabinet positions so they
can get to work and hit the ground running.
What the republicans need to understand is that their obstructionism
is only doomed to further damage their party in the eyes of the
nation. They need to stop acting like this is some sort of team
sport and ask themselves only two questions: What does this country
need? And how can they help?
But lacking ANY FACTS WHATSOEVER we'll speculate because that's
what we like to do.
We suspect Madoff isn't in jail because the prosecutors need to
unwind this mess which seems to have swallowed $50 billion. To
do that will take information. Madoff's records have already
been reported as abysmal and contradictory, he kept several
sets of books which documented financial transactions in conflicting
So prosecutors who are probably more concerned with trying to get his victims
as much of their money back as possible than immediately punishing
Madoff probably made a deal: So long as Madoff cooperates with
investigators he can remain under house arrest.
That's a tricky proposition because as soon as he does give prosecutors
enough information for them to work without him they may as well lock
him up.
But Madoff, and no doubt his attornies, seem to be shrewd cookies
and can probably drag this state of affairs out for years. Add
the claim that Madoff is in a very precarious psychological
state which may well be a ploy to delay this investigative process
(we can imagine his lawyer saying "Bernie's having a really bad day
again, can we postpone the meeting until next week?") Then again,
maybe he is nuts, it wouldn't shock us.
And then what? Who knows. Who cares. Madoff is 70 years old, he's worse than
washed up, he's facing prison. We'd guess the biggest concern right
now is suicide and then he takes useful information with him to the grave.
Of course what his lawyers must be shooting for is some sort of
immunity or plea deal in exchange for Madoff's cooperation with
prosecutors. Maybe get him confined to some sort of fancy hospital for
the rest of his life.
That said, one ominous rumor which is circulating is that Madoff
may've ripped off the "wrong" people in Russia. Wrong in that
they're not the sort of people who look to the legal system for
justice but prefer their own style of execution.
This tends to back up the first theory, that prosecutors still
need lots of information from Madoff and they know if they put
him into the prison population he'd be killed in a matter of days.
Blagojevich's announcement came less than an hour after the
Senate Democratic leadership warned him that they would not
seat anyone the Illinois Governor appoints. The Senate has
the ultimate power to decide who to seat or not to seat.
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White (who happens to be
black) said he would not certify Burris though that may be
Everyone who knows Burris seems to be falling over each other to
say he is a "good and decent man".
President-Elect Obama issued a statement shortly after the announcement
of the Blagojevich appointment that Burris should not be seated.
Bush Legacy! Get Your Red Hot Bush Legacy!
The Bush administration has come up with a devilishly clever way to
save the president's legacy: Tie it to Obama's coattails!
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has been selling this angle in
interviews lately. It goes like this: If things go well for the Obama
administration some of the credit should go to the solid foundations laid by
the Bush administration.
Which is kind of like a lousy baseball player taking credit for
winning the game because he laid the foundation for the next at
bat to hit one out of the park. Maybe he tired out the pitcher.
Really sort of pathetic if you ask us.
It's Official: Franken Leads Coleman
Ok, it's only
by 50 votes
but it's been accepted by Minnesota state Canvassing Board.
Now on to more disputed absentee ballots...
Also, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said over the weekend:
"If the Canvassing
Board declares a winner, that should be our senator. [The Senate] could seat
a senator pending the litigation."
But is there any truth to the statement anyhow?
The Palestinian Authority (we'll call it "PA") consists of two
disjoint pieces one in the West Bank and the other in the Gaza
The portion in the West Bank is run by Fatah, the late Yassir Arafat's
party, and the Gaza strip portion run by Hamas,
labelled a terrorist organization by the US and others.
Doing a little research we learn that when Hamas took over from
Fatah in Gaza in 2007 they invited the German newspaper Der Spiegel
to a
tour of Fatah's torture chambers and backroom execution facilities
. Lovely.
Hamas themselves were no slackers. To celebrate winning an election
in Gaza they proceeded to
throw Fatah rivals off high-rise Gaza buildings.
. Here's a
video of the execution
if you feel that will help but we warn you it's stomach-churning.
Not to be outdone Fatah quickly began throwing Hamas leaders off
of roofs to their death (see same stories.)
Hamas of course does not recognize Israel's right to exist while
demanding Israel recognize Hamas' right to exist. Well, Israel
certainly recognizes the Palestinian Authority's right to exist.
And then there are the near-daily rocket barrages from Hamas' Gaza
over the past few years. Today they managed
to kill an Israeli Arab
(Bedouin) construction worker
in a barrage of 60 rockets fired at Ashkelon, an Israeli town near Gaza.
The world mostly ignored the Taliban rule in Afghanistan in the
late 1990s as they
battered every imaginable human right from refusing women
medical care (no female doctors allowed, and they decided it was indecent
for a man to treat a woman) or no teaching girls to
read (you could be executed in Taliban Afghanistan for that),
and on and on, you've heard it all before about the horrors
of life under the Taliban's sub-medieval Islamic rule.
And what did tolerating their way of doing things get us? It got
us 9/11 and a war in Afghanistan which has raged for almost six
years now. Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda operated out of
Taliban Afghanistan.
So here we are again, the world's Arab-Muslim community
in particular, tolerating and often encouraging the
murderous lunatics running Gaza, and condemning Israel's attempts
to contain these Hamas and Fatah thugs claiming they are the
legitimate leaders of the Palestinians.
Has the world really gone that crazy?
And what about the Palestinians? Well, we could give you the
litany of horrific conditions within the Palestinian Authority. Of
heartbreaking rates of infant mortality, starvation, and other
But it's so easy to blame all that on Israel somehow. Any
factual basis for that blame is unnecessary, we just work
backwards from the conclusion we wish to draw.
But even if it were somehow Israel's fault, they certainly
have to contain these violent lunatics which no doubt
impedes commerce in the PA, isn't Hamas and Fatah's
violence, such as firing daily rocket barrages at Israeli
towns, also culpable?
The solution is so simple it makes one crazy to think about it: Throw
off these Hamas and Fatah terrorist thugs and just embrace Israel and
work things out and ask for help and cooperation in feeding and
housing and educating your children, etc.
How is life in Israel? Generally much like any
Western European country. In fact, over 15% of Israeli citizens
are Arabs and they live the same privileged life, own stores
and factories, and some of the best restaurants and cafes
in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Did you know Israel lets Muslims
run a parallel system for civil legal issues such as marriages
and divorces which has full authority? Christians in Israel
also have a similar system which operates within the Israeli
Ok, this sounds overly rosy. It happens to be true, but compromise
demands that we color the truth soas not to stretch the credulity
of the reader.
Of course there are frictions between Jews and
Arab Muslims within Israel, some quite contentious. But they
sue each other or hold demonstrations or form political
parties and get seats in the Israeli parliament. The United
Arab List Ta'al has
4 seats currently.
All the things people
do in civilized societies.
How many seats do you think Jews have in the PA, or any Arab
country's, parliament? Zero. When Israeli "settlers", people
who worked (usually collective) farms in areas which had been
given to the PA, offered to buy these farms from the Palestinians
for the market price and in some cases above-market prices
the PA refused absolutely.
Let's make it simple. Arab Muslims may make up 15% of the population
of Israel, but Jews make up ZERO percent of the population of the
PA. One thing has never changed: Islamic thugs can't stand the stink
of a Jew in their country. A lot of what we see has evolved from
the old Islamic prohibitions against Jews owning property.
Of course those trying hard to sympathize with the likes of
Hamas and Fatah never consider these thugs' filthy, racist
character. Only Israel is capable of evil in their eyes,
Hamas and Fatah are merely freedom fighters to be cheered!
But what the Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens
don't do is fire rockets at each other or walk
into crowded pizza places on a Saturday night with a bomb
strapped to their chests soas to kill as many teen-agers as
possible. They don't throw each other off high buildings
as a way to settle differences!
So why does this violence go on? Why are relations between Israel and
the PA so violently contentious?
Because a lot of the foreign aid for the PA comes from individuals
and countries who want to see Israel destroyed and for Jerusalem
to be under Muslim rule
again. They see it as their way into heaven. Really.
And he who pays the piper calls the tunes.
This just in: an article on Huffington
Post which is very similar to ours in sentiment:
Hamas Is Largely to Blame for Israel's Gaza Offensive
Apparently the popular media has done such a poor job of reporting on
events in the area that many seem to think Hamas fired a single
rocket into Israel, and Israel responded with a massive air attack.
What has actually been going on is almost daily rocket and mortar attacks,
for months and years,
coming from the Palestinians in Gaza fired at Israeli towns
across the border, notably Sderot and Ashkelon.
Now, we could retreat into the litany of complaints each side
has about each other but let's at least get these facts straight.
Imagine for a moment if Cuba was launching rockets at Miami on
a daily basis for months and the United States' response. We think
it's safe to say it wouldn't go on for months, Cuba would be
occupied forthwith after the first attack. Imagine tolerating
near-daily attacks for years!
But maybe you're not sure about this daily rocket barrage from
the Palestinians because, as we noted, it's rarely mentioned in
the mass media.
When something like this isn't mentioned in our
usual news sources it's hard for us to accept that it exists,
it sounds like some crazy exaggeration or fabrication after the
So, we're going to show you how to easily prove to yourself that
this daily rocket attack has been going on.
Open up news.google.com.
Type into the search box the single word qassam (you
can try again later with kassam, an alternate spelling.)
This is the type of rocket the Palestinians use in these daily
Below is some of what we got back from that search and searching
UPI and
The New York Times. There
are many more daily, detailed reports from Israeli press sources such
as Ynetnews and Ha'aretz but we wanted to minimize those soas
not to raise any suspicions:
Dec 25, 2008,
Associated Press:
Israel set for Gaza invasion after rocket barrage
Dec 25, 2008,
BBC News:
Israel warns Hamas over rockets
Dec 24, 2008
Ynetnews, Israel:
Qassam damages Sderot factory; 3 suffer from shock
Dec 19, 2008
ABC Online, Australia:
Rockets fired in Gaza Strip after Hamas ends ceasefire
Palestinian militants have fired two rockets from the Gaza Strip into
southern Israel...
Dec 18, 2008
All News Web:
Israel: 40 rockets fired from Gaza in less than one week
Dec 17, 2008
Christian Broadcasting Network, Virginia:
Rockets Pound Israel before Truce Ends
Dec 16, 2008
Kassam rockets fired on Israeli targets
Dec 13, 2008
Ynetnews, Israel:
Rocket, mortars land in Negev
Nov 6, 2008
New York Times:
MIDDLE EAST; Gaza: Rocket Fire and Israeli Strike Disrupt Cease-Fire
Hamas fired dozens of rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday...
Nov 5, 2008
Palestinians launch Gaza rocket attack
Aug 9, 2008
Gaza rocket firings break cease-fire
Jan 9, 2008
New York Times:
At Gaza's Edge, Israelis Fear Rockets' Whine
"A little more than three weeks ago, on Dec. 13, Ms. Sasson's daughter Nofit,
21, was on the roof terrace hanging out laundry when she heard the red alert
and then saw a Qassam whistling toward her. She ran screaming down the stairs;
the rocket hit the house next door, exploding and then embedding itself in the
wall between the houses, just next to canisters of bottled gas, shattering
windows and cracking walls."
We strongly encourage you to do your own research.
This just in
Time Magazine:
The Gaza Air Strikes: Why Israel Attacked
"...Palestinian militants in Gaza have long launched Kassam and other
rockets at Israeli towns across the border, and in the past six weeks the
number of attacks has increased dramatically. After the attack, Israeli
officials said the number of Palestinian rocket attacks could now spike to
200 a day. Hamas announced that it had sent a rocket toward Askelon; one man
in the Israeli town of Netivot, east of the Gaza strip, was killed. Israel
also expects Hamas to launch suicide attacks against Israel. A Hamas leader
promised as much Saturday."
Imagine, 200 missile attacks a day, and some are shouting that
Israel lacks restraint.
It's amazing how many different reasons there are to dislike Bush. Bad
decisions, no decisions, suspicions of conflicts of interest and
enriching himself and his via the office, support for torture,
flawed political philosophy,
flawed religious philosophy, flawed economic philosophy...
Chris Rock said:
That might be something of an exaggeration, or perhaps an
amusingly tasteless way to put it, but it has a ring of truth: Bush
has polluted many of the institutions he has been associated with,
especially the republican party and the word "conservative".
At this point what does "conservative" mean? What do republicans
stand for? Their philosophy of lower taxes and "deficits don't
matter" has gotten us into record debt and seems to have contributed
greatly to destroying the US, and possibly the entire world's, economy.
The so-called conservative republicans now stand for
endless war and an atmosphere where even talking about how
we can win is made out to be treasonous nonsense.
When did winning wars become treasonous nonsense? Well,
first under the republican president Nixon during the Vietnam war.
That war dragged on for six years of his administration and
escalated. Thousands of our boys died, a million or more of their people
died at our hands, at an enormous cost. People who suggested that
we should either accomplish our goals (after all, compare the US
to little Vietnam!), whatever they were, or get out, were vilified. Such people
were labeled treasonous weirdos, peaceniks, and other derogatory
terms by Nixon and his republican cohorts.
And where are we now with Bush? Almost six years into
a war. It's not even clear who we are at war with. Some
faceless group of people called "terrorists" or "al Qaeda".
Is it really possible that an enemy which doesn't even have a
country, a stable base of operations, has had the mighty US military
pinned down for almost six years?
Or has Bush accomplished the perma-war of dystopic science fiction
novels? Wars not fought for any particular objective other than
to confront and kill some vaguely defined evil, war for war's
sake, war as an activity of this society as much as manufacturing
or retail or education.
Indeed we will be glad to see the back of this president!
At this point it's highly unlikely that Minnesota will have this
Senate seat filled when the new Senate is sworn in on January 6.
The Huffington Post has an
reporting that Coleman and Franken have reached a deal that would
count a rejected absentee ballot only if both sides agree it
was wrongly rejected. The deal is still subject to approval
by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Although it seems fair on the
surface the court's interest isn't that the two candidates are
treated fairly but, rather, that the voters and the voting process
are treated fairly.
unofficial count
has Franken ahead by 47 votes.
But look at this interchange between David Gregory and
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Meet The Press today
(full transcript):
This echoed Bush's
"Yeah, I think it's a reporter. At least that's what they told me on the way
out, that it's a person who works in the Iraqi press, stands up and throws his
shoe. And it was amusing...So this happens and it's a sign of a free society."
A free society? Forget that the reporter who threw the
shoe was
for the moment, though that's not how we like to think we treat
prisoners in a free society. It does happen, but in a country with
Iraq's history it seems all the more predictable and odious.
But how was this a symbol of a free society? That the man stood
up and took a chance to express his views?
As we remember this is a country which suffers nearly daily
suicide bombings often killing dozens of civilians in a most
gruesome way.
Are suicide bombers also a "symbol of a free society"?
What fluff! And shame on David Gregory for feeding this
pap to Secretary of State Rice in his new role as Meet the
Press anchor. Believe it or not that show's format used
to be a few well known members of the press grilling some
government official or similar and trying to get some
beads of sweat on their brows.
Now instead we have David Gregory throwing softballs at
the Secretary of State echoing the President's nonsensical
happy talk?
And now for some good news! The reporter who threw the
has rejected
Iraqi attorney Khalil al-Dulaimi's
offer to defend him. Mr al-Dulaimi defended Saddam
Hussein and we all know how that turned out!
According to this Minneapolis-St Paul Star Tribune
Franken has picked up "several hundred votes" putting him in
the lead against Coleman.
There are still several hurdles ahead including wading through
the rest of the challenged ballots which by our count seem
to be now down to somewhat under 1,000 ballots. And no
doubt we'll see further litigation by whoever ends up behind
when this current phase of recount ends. It's highly likely
we won't see an end to this election in 2008.
The Washington Post just posted an
article by Chris Cillizza
claiming Franken is ahead by 126 votes, but also noting that
about 1,000 ballots still need to be sorted through.
Republican incumbent Norm Coleman
in front of
Minnesota Supreme Court to block improperly rejected
absentee ballots. Coleman argues that each county has
its own way of rejecting ballots and that should be
honored. Franken argues that there are state-wide
standards which must be followed. No ruling yet.
Coleman has picked up 237 more votes as the Canvassing Board
disposes of challenges. Franken picked up 65. That puts
Coleman ahead 360 votes but that lead is fragile as there
are thousands of challenges yet to be reviewed. The state
Canvassing Board is shooting for Friday to end this phase
of the recount but litigation will continue.
Don't expect a replacement for Obama Illinois Senate seat soon
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was supposed to appoint a
replacement for President-elect Obama's Senate seat but he's
been arrested for allegedly trying to sell the seat, so that's
on hold.
the Illinois Supreme Court rejected an emergency request from the
state's Attorney-General Madigan to consider removing Blagojevich, and
any temporary restraining order. Madigan basically argued that
the severity and nature of the federal case against him rendered
him unable to perform his duties.
Governor Blagojevich is fighting back against the corruption charges
and has indicated he will be making public statements in his defense
The defense of Blagojevich mainly rests on claims that
although there was a lot of talk nothing actually happened. For
example, no money or other profit was taken, no seat was sold, and
mere talk is just that, talk, and not criminal. There's a fine
line between conspiracy and horse-trading in politics.
What about Hillary Clinton's New York Senate seat?
Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy, has begun her
for Clinton's Senate seat. In Syracuse today she said "she would
be honored be considered for the position of U.S. senator". Caroline's
uncle, the late Robert F. Kennedy, was Senator from New York when
he was assassinated in 1968.
Caroline Kennedy currently lives on Park Avenue in Manhattan with
her husband Edwin Schlossberg and two daughters, Rose (after
Caroline's grandmother) and Tatiana (after Edwin's grandmother),
and son John aka "Jack" (after her great grandfather John Bouvier III.)
Caroline Kennedy is an attorney, writer, and serves on the boards of
several non-profits.
The appointment will be made New York Governor David Paterson.
hopefuls include
Andrew Cuomo, current Attorney-General and son
of former NY Governor Mario Cuomo, Nassau County District Executive
Tom Suozzi, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, Bronx Borough President
Adolfo Carrion Jr, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Representative
Steve Israel, Representative Carolyn Mahoney, Representative Kirsten
Gillibrand, and Representative Brian Higgins.
And a replacement for Governor Bill Richardson?
Bill Richardson will be Obama's new Commerce Secretary. He was
New Mexico's Governor so will need to be replaced. A likely
replacement will be New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish
would become New Mexico's first female governor (ed., this is
probably a done deal now.)
Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona, to be Secretary of
Homeland Security
Governor Naplitano, by state law, will be replaced by
Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer, a republican. This
poses a particular problem for Arizona democrats because
the legislature is republican-dominated and only Napolitano's
veto stood in the way of their rubber-stamping their republican
agenda. Pity poor Arizona!
And last but not least, what about Vice President-Elect Joe Biden's
Delaware Senate seat?
This has already been decided. Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner will
appoint long-time Biden Senate aide Ted Kaufman to fill the seat. There
had been some speculation that Joe Biden's son Beau might get the
nod but Beau took himself out of the running as he is currently
serving as Attorney General of Delaware and a Captain in the
Delaware National Guard, in the Judge Advocate General's
Corps (he's a lawyer), currently in Iraq.
On December 15th after the general election the electoral college
gets together and casts their votes. That's what actually elects
a president, not any of this nonsense on the first Tuesday after
the first Monday in November.
And next, on January 6th, 2009 when the new congress convenes their
first order of business will be to certify the results of yesterday's
electoral college vote. Then onwards to the inauguration and swearing
in and if all goes as planned Barack Hussein Obama will become the
44th President of the United States of America.
For the record the results were: Barack Hussein Obama: 365 votes,
John Sidney McCain III: 173 votes. No faithless electors or other
In Missouri Barack Obama received 1,441,911, John McCain
1,445,814, a difference of 3,903 votes more for the republican
Ralph Nader received 17,813 votes, way more than McCain beat
Obama by in Missouri. It's reasonable to assume most if not
all of Nader's votes would've gone to the democratic candidate
if Nader wasn't on the ticket (granted some might not have
voted at all.) In which case Obama would have won Missouri
by almost 14,000 votes.
However, not so fast! Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr got 11,386 votes.
Let's add those to the republican count.
And Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin got 8,201 votes. They're
basically another right-wing party. Pat Buchanan once threatened
Bob Dole that he'd run as the Constitution Party's candidate if
Dole didn't choose a VP candidate Pat liked. Need we say more? Add
their votes to the republicans' count.
Finally, the Green Party was only represented by write-ins and
received 75 votes for their candidate former congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney. We'll definitely give those votes to the democrats.
So where does that leave us? 1,459,799 for Obama and 1,465,401. Wow,
John McCain still wins Missouri by 5,602, more than without the
third-party candidates.
Oh well, so much for that stupid line of thinking.
To add to the twists and turns of missing ballots and ballot
challenges how about the FBI investigating Norm Coleman?
Allegedly an associate of Coleman, Nasser Kazeminy, tried to
illegally funnel $100,000 to Coleman and his wife via his
wife's employer.
Some are already asking Coleman to resign immediately if he
wins the recount.
More breaking news as it breaks!
Craig argued that his toe-tapping and other movements in his
bathroom stall in the Minnesota-Saint Paul airport in June 2007
were protected by his free speech rights.
Without agreeing that toe tapping is a protected form of speech
the appeals court said the government has every right to make
and enforce laws regarding offensive speech, particularly where
the other party cannot easily escape that speech, and felt that
sexually suggestive toe-tapping and other movements directed at
someone in a bathroom stall easily fits that criteria.
Craig has spent over $200,000 in campaign funds on his legal
defense in this case. He was up for re-election in November
but chose not to run so will retire in January. Republican
Jim Risch bettered Democrat Larry LaRocco so will be the
new junior Senator from Idaho. Stay out of airport bathrooms
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the 'j' is pronounced like a 'y',
blag-o-YEV-itch, was just freed on $4,500 bail.
The notable accusation is that he allegedly tried to sell
the appointment to Obama's senate seat, apparently for
a lucrative position for his wife and other offers. The
prosecutor's office claims he was caught wheeling-dealing on wiretap.
It's also alleged that he threatened the (Chicago) Tribune corporation,
who has just entered chapter 11 bankruptcy protection,
with witholding money they'd been promised by the state if
they didn't fire certain editors and, possibly, suppress this
latest round of corruption reporting.
Republican George Homer Ryan,
Blagojevich's predecessor in the Illinois
governor's role, entered federal prison on November 7, 2007 to
begin a six year sentence for all sorts of corruption charges.
Ryan can currently be found in the satellite prison camp
adjacent to the Federal Correction Institution at Terre Haute,
Tony Rezko is currently serving time for fraud and other charges. He's
had a colorful career which included executive director of the Muhammed
Ali Foundation and made a fortune in real estate mostly in the Chicago
area. He's also currently under indictment for creating inflated assets
soas to obtain millions of dollars in loans from GE Capital.
Rezko was a major contributor to Illinois Governor Blagojevich
and has hired the governor's wife on various occasions to help
with real estate matters.
Rezko did fundraising for Barack Obama's first senate run and
made contributions himself directly or indirectly through his
companies. Obama says he located $250,000 in contributions
associated with Rezko and has donated them to non-profits. There's
also a rather complicated relationship surrounding a home
the Obamas purchased in 2005 whose details you can find
Needless to say the few remaining republican faithful are salivating
over all this as a road to attack President-elect Obama, reminiscent
of the Whitewater and other investigations into Clinton's dealings
from the start of his term which produced, ultimately, nothing.
House GOP minority leader John Boehner has already
thrown down the gauntlet
on this strategy of running smear campaigns against any and all
democrats as the GOP strategy to get back into favor with voters.
We wonder if, instead, the republicans will actually ever do anything
constructive, like figuring out where they went so wrong over the
past several years, rather than hoping to drag down the democrats
down to their level or below by flinging mud.
As they say, never wrestle with a pig. You'll both get covered in
shit, but the pig will enjoy it.
Franken v. Coleman
The hotly contested Senate race in Minnesota continues with
Coleman withdrawing 475 ballot challenges today.
At this point no one knows who is ahead in this race, estimates
are as
close as Franken by four votes.
Right now it's looking more and more like this senate race is
headed for the Senate for resolution.
They still have the fight over disputed ballots ahead, thousands of them split
about equally between the two sides, and Minneapolis is frantically
trying to locate 133 ballots which are just missing. At this point
that's enough ballots to settle the election tho it's unlikely they will.
A possible result is that the Senate will settle the election. This
would be the first time the Senate has done this
since 1974
and even
then it wasn't conclusive and ended up in a special election.
The Myth of 60
Much has been made of the magic 60 Senate vote threshold for
the democrats, mostly because they definitely hold 58 seats
and if they won both Georgia and Minnesota could have that
magic 60. But they lost Georgia, so even if Franken wins they're
only looking at 59 democrats.
This is of some importance because if the minority republicans
choose to try to block legislation by fillibuster, exercising
their right to endlessly debate a topic, it takes 60 votes to
stop them and call for a vote by a motion known as cloture.
When republican Chambliss beat Martin in a run-off for the
Georgia Senate seat last week the papers screamed about how
the hopes for 60 democratic Senate seats had been dashed.
This is only technically true.
There are currently and indisputably 58 democratic seats in the
If Franken wins that will be 59 democratic seats.
There are 41 republican seats, and, similarly, this could become
42 republican seats if Coleman beats Franken.
But that leaves two seats missing. Those are held by two independents,
Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Bernie Sanders is a
"self-described democratic socialist"
and caucuses with the democratic party.
I think that's a pretty safe 59, 58 democrats plus Sanders.
Lieberman was the democratic candidate for Vice President in 2000,
he ran with Al Gore. He was first elected democratic senator from Connecticut
in 1988.
In 2006 at least in part owing to his support of the Iraq war Lieberman
failed to win the Connecticut democratic party's nomination for the
senate which instead went to Ned Lamont. Lieberman ran anyhow as
a third-party independent candidate and won. Apparently the lack
of support from democrats shook him and 2006-2008 he seemed to
become more and more allied with republicans.
Lieberman even went so far as to speak at the 2008 Republican National
Convention in support of John McCain and campaigned for McCain.
After McCain lost it was assumed Lieberman would lose his committee
assignments, particularly Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
There was a much-publicized meeting between Liberman and democratic
Senate majority leader Harry Reid shortly after the election and
it seemed some hatchets were buried and Lieberman was likely to
keep his democratic committee assignments.
Lieberman subsequently appeared on "Meet the Press" and mostly
dodged questions about his brief republican love affair and kept
repeating how he only wished to look forward.
Clearly Senator Lieberman is an opportunist who will go with whomever
he perceives as ahead and right now the democrats are ahead so
Lieberman has declared his unwavering loyalty to the democratic
That makes 60.
The democrats never needed Martin (Georgia) or Franken (Minnesota)
for 60 though Franken's
vote could be useful in case Lieberman hits his head in the shower
Georgia Results (All times Eastern)
Georgia Screws Itself! Elects republican Chambliss!
Gives up their one chance for access to democrat majority government!
03:41: Chambliss 1,220,854 (57%), Martin 905,637 (43%), 99% reporting.
23:05: Chambliss 1,196,278 (57%), Martin 888,475 (43%), 98% reporting.
21:40 Chambliss 1,009,730 (59%), Martin 697,075 (41%), 82%
reporting. Chambliss widely projected to win.
20:16 Chambliss 335,990 (65%), Martin 181,605 (35%), 22% reporting.
20:07 Chambliss 253,095 (65%), Martin 136,888 (35%), 18% reporting.
19:55 Chambliss 102,271 (66%), Martin 52,464 (34%), 6% reporting.
19:43 Chambliss 48,655 (69%), Martin 22,006 (31%), 3% reporting.
19:37 Chambliss 32,892 (69%), Martin 15,062 (31%), 2% reporting.
19:23 Chambliss 15,744 (68%), Martin 7,312 (32%), 1% reporting.
19:17 Chambliss 5,616 (68%), Martin 2,683 (32%)
19:15 Chambliss 2,242 (61%), Martin 1,453 (39%)
19:13 With one precinct reporting it's Chambliss 331, Martin
They're voting in Georgia! Voting is
in the runoff election
between republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and democratic
challenger Jim Martin.
Polls close at 7PM, minutes from now. We will keep you posted
here on results as they become available.
Franken vs Coleman
Meanwhile, in the Minnesota senate election recount, 171 ballots
were found just hours ago giving republican incumbent Norm
Coleman 54 more votes and democratic challenger Al Franken
91 more votes for a net gain of 37 for Franken (the remainder went
to other candidates.)
Coleman was leading Franken by 215 votes, so that whittles
Coleman's lead down to 178.
And there are still almost 6,000 ballots which have been challenged
by the two candidates, roughly 3,000 each.
The possibility still exists for the US Senate to just pick a winner,
that's within their power though this hasn't happened since 1974. But
it does happen in disputed elections such as this one.
Since the democrats have a solid majority in the Senate this could
bode well for Franken so it's probably in his interest to push
events towards a Senatorial resolution.
Among those campaigning for Chambliss is Sarah Palin, you betcha!
This race is important because the democrats are two senate seats
away from the magic 60 seats needed to procedurally stop filibusters
which are a tool for the minority party, the republicans,
to oppose legislation.
Jim Martin winning would give the senate democrats 59 of the needed
60 seats. There is another senate race in Minnesota whose outcome
is yet to be determined, between republican incumbent Norm Coleman
and democratic challenger Al Franken. In Minnesota the race was
too close to call so they are now going through a recount which
may take another two weeks, or more if there are court
challenges, to settle.
If the democrats can take both the Georgia and Minnesota seats
they have the magic 60. This, along with a democrat-dominated
House of Representatives and White House basically means
the democrats can pass legislation just about unchallenged.
There are still other checks and balances in our government
such as getting legislation past committees and onto the
floor for a vote as well as potential court challenges if
legislation can be argued to be unfair or in violation of
other laws including the Constitution. And, of course,
mere appeals to reason as guileless as that sounds in this
day and age.
Right now tomorrow's runoff election in Georgia is very hard
to call partly because it will probably be very close but also
because such runoff elections are relatively rare. One thing
which is almost certain is that turnout will be much lower than
in the November election; people tend to just not come out for
runoff or other off-season elections.
And what about Sarah?
Another factor is Sarah Palin's highly publicized campaigning
for fellow republican Chambliss. Palin appeals mostly to
people who would have voted republican anyhow, and polarizes
democrats negatively. She showed little appeal in the important
political center where swing voters might be swayed.
But this election is a little different. Turnout will be very
much key to the outcome, and if Palin can motivate the party
loyal to come out and vote that would be a big plus for Chambliss.
The democratic base in Georgia counts many African-Americans among
them, so Jim Martin has been putting his effort into appealing to
that community to show up and vote.
If Chambliss loses, particularly if he loses decisively, it could
be another nail in the cardboard coffin of Sarah Palin's national
political career. Many republicans blame her for McCain's poor
showing in November, and another loss might just label her as
"box office poison" politically.
The-Election.com endorses Jim Martin for Senator
All that said we urge Georgians to vote for democrat Jim Martin tomorrow.
Our reasoning is simple and appeals to their own self-interest.
The White House and both Houses of Congress will, in either case,
be heavily dominated by democrats. Currently both Senators from
Georgia are republicans, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson who
will be up for election again in 2010.
If Georgians elect Chambliss they will be shut out of the dominant
political party in the senate. Georgia has already elected a
majority republican (7-6) congressional delegation.
Let's be brutally honest: The democrats will control the purse
strings for the next few years at least. Georgia is going into
this election a republican state. That's not a good position to
be in.
Voting for democrat Jim Martin will give Georgia the representation
it needs in the Senate. Voting for Saxby Chambliss risks being
shut out in the cold politically and economically for the next
two years at least.
Regardless of personal feelings about party loyalty Georgians would do
well to vote for democrat Jim Martin tomorrow.
The republicans used this political dominance to enact their
views on economics, politics, and a raft of social issues.
The result was that their economics views were a total disaster and
have sunk the US (and world) economy into its worst downturn since
the Great Depression, their social issues have mostly been rejected
by the voters, and politically they're in full retreat and have
now completely lost control of those same three institutions: The
White House and both houses of Congress. The supreme court is probably
still pretty sympathetic but the republicans don't really have
anything to bring before them.
George W. Bush is wrapping up the most unpopular presidency in the
history of this country. And that includes contenders like
Richard Nixon who had to resign in disgrace and Herbert Hoover
whose name is forever synonymous with the Great Depression. And
those are just in recent memory, James Buchanan was a remarkably
unpopular president but nobody remembers him. Suffice it to say
Buchanan was Lincoln's immediate predecessor and is often credited
with dragging the US into its Civil War. Bush is worse than all
of them!
George W Bush isn't just the worst president
of the United States, ever. He's the worst president of any kind,
ever. That would include PTA presidents and company presidents
and the president of your local high school class of 2010.
But the situation for republicans is much worse than just
George W Bush's legacy. A failed individual could be written
off. Richard Nixon was a failed individual but republicans
pressed on and six years after Nixon's resignation, two
of those years with republican president Gerald Ford in
the White House, elected Ronald Reagan to two full terms.
So what's different this time?
What's different is that the republicans got what they wanted
from 2001-2006, and with Bush still in the White House didn't
see any major reversals of those policies since 2006. The
presidential veto is, if nothing else, a great way to make
sure nothing to the president's disliking happens. It takes
66 votes in the Senate to over-ride a presidential veto and
the democrats were nowhere close to that 2006-2008.
The republicans got what they wanted, and it failed. It failed
miserably. It failed indisputably and before their very eyes.
"Deficits don't matter" said vice-president Dick Cheney in 2002.
And so the republicans ran up the deficits by record amounts, over
$3 trillion between 2001-2006. And to finance those deficits they
had to go into the credit markets and sell treasury bills. And
to make those t-bills attractive they had to keep cranking up
interest rates which cranked up all interest rates and mortgages
become unaffordable, businesses couldn't borrow at interest rates
which let them remain profitable, adjustable mortgages adjusted
sharply upwards putting millions of homeowners in danger of
foreclosure, and the economy collapsed.
Deficits don't matter???
And as part of their program to get government off our backs
the republicans de-regulated and de-regulated. The free
market will take care of regulating markets much better than
any government bureaucrat can they kept telling us. They quoted Ronald Reagan
on how the scariest words in the english language were "we're
from the government and we're here to help you" to loud
guffaws from their amen chorus.
Wall street figured out what this massive deregulation meant. It meant
they could sell insurance against default on bonds and other securities
knowing full well they couldn't actually make good on that insurance
should it come to pass.
Why, they sold the insurance to people who didn't even own the
bonds being insured. Imagine if your neighbor could buy fire
insurance on your house? But that's just what was going on,
it was just a big gambling parlor.
Of course that alone wouldn't have mattered much, let the idiots
lose their money if they like. None of our concern, this is wall
street after all, they're big boys and girls, they know what they're
getting themselves into.
Unfortunately, they didn't know what they were getting themselves into,
or ignored the potential dangers.
It wasn't just that they sold this bond insurance, they sold
way more than they could ever make good on. Since a lot of
these bonds were bundles of mortgages then when the republicans
funding the republican deficits started to create pressure
on the mortgage market these bonds came into question and
the whole house of cards came tumbling down.
And they didn't just bring down the insurance underwriters. Often
these were sold by big investment banks, brokerage houses, and
sometimes even an insurance company. Hundreds of billions of
dollars worth of phony insurance. So when the scheme came crashing down
to earth it took entire companies with names like Bear-Stearns,
Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, down with it. Ooops!
But ask any republican! Deficits don't matter! Regulation is bad,
markets can and will regulate themselves!
Sadly, quite a few republicans still cling to their ideology in
an unconditional love sort of way.
They believe that they must
have been right so something else is to blame. For example, their
tax reductions didn't go far enough, or their deregulation didn't
deregulate enough and other delusional reasoning that somewhere
way out there is this magic point where the effects reverse
and lowering taxes actually raises tax revenues because it has caused such
great stimulation of the economy. The
Laffer Curve
is an example of one of these theories, now completely discredited.
So what can republicans do?
Beats us. But something which won't work is just regrouping
and trying to find a new way to sell their tried and disproven
ideas. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!
About all they have left at this point are those with some
sort of strong nostalgic, emotional commitment to the word
"republican" and their failed ideas, some number of people
who have drunk the kool-aid and can now live on
a blind hatred of democrats and (shudder!) liberals, and
those who don't give a damn if anyone ever eats again they
feel their "conservative" point of view is morally superior.
That latter group tend to make up the religious right though
there are quite a few secular "libertarian" types mixed in. These
folks just believe there is this order to the universe, either
from the will of god and/or their personal notion of right and wrong
and it says conservative is right, facts and observation be damned.
As the old expression goes, for these die-hard conservatives
"are you gonna believe us? or your lyin' eyes?!" is the beginning,
middle, and end of the argument.
I was just reading a screed by one of these self-described libertarian
conservative liberal-hating types. The self-absorbed narcissism
made me shudder with revulsion. There's nothing much more there
to the red-hot anger directed against taxes or government
regulation than "get your hands off my stuff!" You can get
similar deep philosophy by entering your average 15 year old's
bedroom uninvited and snooping around a little. Then again,
the 15 year old may be right. But this angry bunch is just
shallow and self-interested. The spoiled children of the right.
What most libertarian types seem to have in common is that they
believe we can completely (or almost completely, these are
called "minarchists") dismantle government and everything will
pretty much stay the same or get better. Someone will fix the
roads because, gosh darn it, we need the roads to be fixed! Someone
will keep our food processing companies honest and clean because,
gosh darn it, we need wholesome food! It's basically an ideology
which says if you can imagine something is desirable then
dagnabit the free market will provide. Forget little details
like the free market for over 50 years didn't provide electricity
to large segments of this country until the government instituted
a rural electrification program. It would have come eventually because,
gosh darn it, people wanted eletricity!
And you wonder why they attract the ultra-religious. All they
offer is prayers that the free market, which may as well be a
god in their religion, will deliver whatever is needed. You want
health care? PRAY FOR IT! You want clean water? PRAY FOR IT! And
on and on.
My best advice for those who really hate democrats and
liberals so much is to gather your thoughts and try to
make what you believe
coherent in some way, try to find others who believe what
you believe, and form new political parties.
Because the republican party is a hopeless amalgam of mostly
overly-nostalgic liberal-haters and that sort of thing just
won't be able to move forward. As they say, it's nearly
impossible to drive while only looking in the rear-view
mirror. Unfortunately, your windshield is all muddied up also.
You have lost your way.
Oh, and one more thing as the republican party gets tossed into
the dustbin of history: Demanding "fair" play (by your definition)
and compromise doesn't work until you have something credible
to offer. We wouldn't go half-way with nazis or communists, and
doing the same with republicans whose ideas were also tried and
failed would be similarly foolish.
Ouch? That stings? Then do something new!
Now separated by less than 100 votes Al Franken and Norm Coleman
are still going at it in the Minnesota Senate seat recount. The
current issue is missing ballots. Some counties did not turn over
as many ballots as they had reported as counted.
Virginia: Democrat Tom Perriello defeats Republican Virgil Goode
by 745 votes in recount
Out of over 316,000 votes cast in the Virginia fifth district
it looks like challenger Tom Perriello has won. This gives
Virginia democrats a 6-5 majority in the house. The republicans
went into the election with an 8-3 majority but have now lost 3 seats
to democrats.
Al Gore Campaigns in Georgia Senate Runoff Race
Al Gore is down in Georgia campaigning for democratic challenger
Jim Martin. Martin will be in a runoff election December 2nd
against republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss. Former president
Bill Clinton was stumping for Martin last week. Mitt Romney
and Mike Huckabee have shown up on behalf of Saxby Chambliss.
Right now the race is thought to be a dead heat which isn't
surprising since that's how they got into a runoff in the
first place. A lot of money is being spent on this race and
most likely it will come down to which candidate can get out
the most voters since runoffs tend to attract a light turnout.
Biden aide Ted Kaufman Fills Biden's Senate Seat
There was some speculation that Vice President-elect Joe Biden's
son Captain Beau Biden might be appointed to finish his father's term
but Captain Biden has decided to continue with his military career
and has now deployed to Iraq. Captain Biden is a prosecutor
for the 261st Signal Brigade of the Delaware Army National Guard, and
its subordinate units. He is also Delaware's Attorney General! Busy
However, Ted Kaufman has indicated that he will not be a candidate
in the 2010 special election for the Delaware senate seat leaving
speculation that Captain Biden might run for the seat at that time.
No Decision Yet on Obama's Senate Seat
Illinois Governor hints that he'll make the appointment a
Christmas gift for someone.
Treasury secretary Paulson spoke this afternoon and had nothing to say,
he just rambled on about recent history, why he believes he did the
right thing in regards to Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and similar.
Who cares? What's the plan? Paulson had nothing to say on that.
At the administration's urging Congress gave Paulson
and the Bush administration a "check"
for $700 billion dollars. Paulson won't explain where the
$250 billion he's spent so far has gone, or why he asked
for it if it's doing no good. Almost an equal amount has
been pumped into the financial system by other means,
we're about $1.5 trillion dollars into this and Paulson
the other day insisted that markets are stabilizing!
As the video above evidences the leaders at the ongoing G20
meeting all refused to shake George Bush's hand! Look at
the video. This is both embarrassing and disheartening, they
only invited the current president of the United States to
the party because they had to. He's being shunned!
President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson should resign immediately.
This would make House Speaker Nancy Pelosi president of the United
States until Barack Obama is inaugurated on January 20th.
Pelosi can appoint a new vice-president and fill any
slots such as treasury secretary presumably with Barack Obama's
The current sitting congress probably doesn't have enough votes to
remove Bush and Cheney. That would require a 2/3 vote of the
Senate etc. and party politics are just too heated to expect so many
republicans in congress to do the decent thing, and quickly, it's
just too much to expect. Party loyalties on the part of republicans
in congress trump everything right now, the country be damned.
Consequently we call on Bush, Cheney, and Paulson to resign. They
have failed, their economic views and emergency actions have failed,
they have lost all credibility with the world's leaders.
At this point Bush is holding onto his position only because
we can't force him out. It's all pomp and circumstance and
formality, exactly what this country is NOT supposed
to be about. All he has left are some privileges of the office.
Is it worth taking the country down just to cling to power for
another 60 days? Or can they just not admit failure?
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Henry Paulson:
For once in your
lives do the decent thing and
resign now.
You have all failed,
and you are taking the United States of America down with you.
This is a tough question for a lot of reasons, we think we've
made up our minds however.
First and foremost one has to try to form an opinion without
reviewing the companies' balance sheets in detail, the
details of their business plans going forward, etc. Congress
can review many of these details but let's be honest, we the
people don't have the time or inclination or in many cases
even the ability to figure out what's wrong with these companies
and whether or not a bailout would fix them. All we can really
do is engage in over-simplified sound bites or grand moral
principles we hope cover the situation at hand.
That said, we do believe there're a lot of questionable claims
being made in support of a bailout.
For example, the claim that if the automakers are not bailed
out, and are left to go bankrupt, about three million jobs will be lost.
This is wordplay on the word "bankrupt". There are three
major forms of corporate bankruptcy, two of which apply
here (the third is generally for individuals or very small
Those making the 3 million jobs lost claim are using the word
"bankruptcy" to refer to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. This is also
known as liquidation, where a company is, as the word implies,
In a chapter 7 bankruptcy all the creditors and employees are told the
bad news, it's over, there's nothing or almost nothing left,
the company is washed up, done. A bankruptcy court takes over
the wind-down, assets are sold, taxes, back wages, creditors are
paid roughly in that order, often less than the total amount they
But chapter 7 isn't likely for companies like GM,
Ford, or Chrysler. GM, for example, still takes in around
180 billion dollars a year in revenue. The problem is that
they spend more than 180 billion dollars. But it's not
like a company which is scraping bottom. This is one major
reason why people keep using the word "mismanagement" in
speaking about these companies. How can they have $180B in
revenue and not be able to break even?
So what is likely?
What is more likely is Chapter 11 bankruptcy which is also
referred to as reorganization.
In a chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy first, through the
bankruptcy court, all creditors are informed that any
attempts to collect debts must be stopped. The company
is protected from any further creditor actions. But
the business continues operating as usual, more or less.
Warning! Too Much Detail on Chapter 11 Bankruptcy from here...
Worse! none of us are bankruptcy lawyers so take some of this
with a grain of salt.
The reasoning goes like this: It's assumed the company has a
chance of surviving but creditors' actions are making that
impossible. In a typical scenario one or more creditors are
making it impossible for the company to continue operating.
For example, if the electric company shuts the electricity
off many companies can no longer operate, even if that
electric bill is not a large portion of money owed. So,
the electric company's actions to collect their bill
is threatening the company's ability to pay any of the
other creditors.
In essence the electric company (and it
could be any creditor, we're not picking on the electric
company) has made themselves the most "senior creditor", the
creditor who must be paid first before all other creditors,
including employees' wages, taxes, etc., by threatening
to shut off the electricity.
The law recognizes that this
situation is not fair to anyone involved, it would
just shut down the company and cease any revenues, so protects
the company from any further collection action such as
shutting off the electricity.
Then an executor is appointed by the court, someone the court
trusts can help approve day to day decisions on bills
while the company is under protection. Since chapter 11
can take a year or more, particularly for a big company,
someone has to be paid if there's any revenue.
Next a plan is proposed to the court by the company's
management which would resolve their problems. For example
it might propose to break contracts such as a multi-year
office rental agreement which the company can no longer
afford due to business conditions and allow the company
to move into cheaper space if that's practical.
Or some
debts might be put onto a pay-off schedule which are
less severe. Sometimes that even helps a creditor because
now there's some assurance from the court that the company
will pay off that debt and the creditor could for example
bring that to a bank and borrow the money to be paid off
by the protected company's payments.
There are many other approaches, such as offering past creditors
less than the full amount of their debt. Many companies will
take that once bankruptcy is on the table:
A bird in hand is worth two in the bush as the old
saying goes. Particularly if there is some cash on hand and
a check can be written right away.
For completeness' sake the plan is sent to the creditors for approval.
The creditors each get to vote on the plan
roughly in proportion to the amount owed
to them. If an agreement cannot be reached then the court can
order the company into chapter 7 liquidation, it's over. This
can, for example, happen if the company owns assets which
could be sold to pay off debts but would close the company.
easy example of a creditors' rejection
might be a farmer. Assuming the land being farmed
is owned outright and not mortgaged heavily creditors might
opt to force the farmer to sell the land to pay debts versus
taking less than the debts' full values or long-term pay outs
being proposed. Of course selling the land puts the farmer out of business.
Or the creditors may just not believe the plan can work and
would rather take what they can right now by liquidating the
company. Long-term payouts take a lot of faith that the company
can right itself. The courts can intervene to block what they
see as an unreasonable creditor. Remember that some of this
is about protecting the creditors from unreasonable creditors,
but that's limited and we're getting into far too much detail.
The point is that the automakers are much more likely to
go into this sort of chapter 11 reorganization. They
continue operating and try to work out, with the help of
a court, how they are going to go forward and get out
of chapter 11 protection and operate like a normal business.
So what happens to employees in a chapter 11 bankruptcy?
It depends. But if the company is going to continue operating
they're probably going to need most of the employees. What
might happen is that contracts such as with unions might be
cancelled, or just problematic details such as any parts
of the agreement which require too many employees for the
current business conditions, or make it very expensive to
let go excess employees.
We should note that in a chapter 11 common stock at least is
usually cancelled, made worthless, zero.
And the company is generally protected from typical shareholder
lawsuits though it's difficult to protect against all.
One important
source of lawsuits is that you cannot go into bankruptcy
to cover up fraudulent behavior. Some creditors, probably
a group of large common shareholders who lost everything,
are likely to pursue that path to prevent the company
from working out problems under chapter 11, and if nothing
else to punish the company's management by trying to
argue that they acted in a criminal manner. What they're
usually seeking is a payoff to drop their lawsuit.
...to here
Consequently, we don't think an outright bailout of the automakers
is a good idea or nearly as necessary or urgent as various
supporters of a bailout are describing. Someone has to explain
why they can't just go into chapter 11 reorganization and
try to restructure their company so they are profitable again.
Right this moment it looks like congress is taking a similar
view as evidenced by remarks made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
To that we'd like to add that even if one or more automakers
go out of business entirely people will still buy about the
same numbers of cars. They'll just buy them from someone else.
Some say the problem is that many of these will then be imports
and imports don't create US jobs. There's some truth to that
though it's not that simple. Companies like Toyota do a lot
of manufacturing in the US, and their dealerships are here
of necessity.
But the point is that we might end up with one less US car
company, or even two less. It's unlikely all three major
US car companies would go out of business. And whoever is
remaining will pick up as much of that business as they
deserve, based on the price and quality of their product. But
the marketplace will be less diluted which will help those
standing become profitable.
Finally, we would recommend that if congress decides to let
things take their course with the automakers that an adequate
amount of money be earmarked for the inevitable urgencies
such as extending and expanding unemployment benefits (most
likely some will lose their jobs), emergency assistance
for health care and insurance, mortgage foreclosures, etc.
Also monies for job re-training and re-location.
So we imagine the republicans' plan to dig the party out of
its current hole is to put the same people in charge who
dug them into that hole?
We recall an interchange between Wolf Blitzer and John Boehner on CNN
a few months ago. Blitzer suggested that perhaps it was his party's
enormous spending and deficits which had them in trouble in the then
upcoming election?
Boehner replied angrily that there's a WAR going
on, that's why there are deficits! Blitzer countered that the
republicans in congress, when they were in the majority 2001-2006,
ran up over 3 trillion dollars in new debt, but the war is only
estimated to have cost about $600 billion by that time (less,
actually, by 2006), what about the other $2.5 trillion?
got flustered and angry and changed the subject.
As we said, completely immune to facts or reason.
Well, the republicans can do what they like. Maybe they enjoy
the dark, warm, security of the hole they're in and don't
really want to lead. Look at what a mess they got the country
into when they tried!
Minnesota Senate Recount Begins
The recount in the Minnesota Senate race between republican
incumbent Norm Coleman and democratic challenger Al Franken
has begun (link to New York Times article).
At the start of the recount Coleman is ahead of Franken by 215 votes.
Minnesota law mandates a recount if the difference between two
candidates is less than one half of one percent which would be
about 14,000 votes, far less than the 215 separating the two
candidates currently.
The recount is expected to take until at least December 5th which is
when the Minnesota state board convenes to certify the state's election
results (which aren't just this race.) It could go longer as the
recount is done ballot by ballot by hand.
Yesterday it was announced though not yet officially confirmed that
democrat challenger Mark Begich beat incumbent republican convicted felon
Ted Stevens in Alaska. A challenge is possible though none has been
Assuming the Begich election stands the democrats have 58 seats
in the senate. If Franken wins that would be 59. On December
2nd Saxby Chambliss faces Jim Martin in a runoff for that Georgia
Senate seat. Bill Clinton was seen down in Georgia today stumping for
Martin. If Martin also wins that'd give the democrats the magic
60 they need to thwart most procedural maneuvers available to
the minority republicans.
As we've noted before, to some extent even 60 may be symbolic. There
are two independents in the senate: Joe Lieberman from Connecticut
and Bernie Sanders, Vermont.
Lieberman was a democrat but had lost
a bitter nomination battle in his state, ran as an independent anyhow,
and won. Then Lieberman proceeded to campaign with republican
John McCain and even spoke at the Republican National Convention
(which is more than we can say for Bush or Cheney.)
But in the past few days Lieberman seems to have buried the hatchet
with the democrats. For example, he has retained his chairmanship
of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs even though many
senate democrats wanted him out for his republican shenanigans.
This makes it likely that Lieberman will tend to vote with the
democrats, particularly on procedural matters.
Bernie Sanders, Vermont, ran for the senate
as an independent but describes himself as a
"democratic socialist". All tolled he is more
likely to vote with the democrats on most matters
than the republicans though exceptions exist.
Given that accounting the democrats may only have to win
one of those three Senate races to lock up cloture
ability (a procedure to stop debate and hence filibustering
which requires 60 votes.) If the Begich victory holds the
democrats may already be there for all intents and purposes.
However, if they can take Minnesota and Georgia their
60 votes would be indisputable.
And that doesn't even begin to count senate defectors from the
republican party, something which is common when one party
so totally dominates the senate.
According to this
CNN article
John McCain met with "top advisers" (would those be the same who
gave him Sarah Palin?) about setting up a political action committee
as a run up for a run for another term as senator for the run-down
old guy.
Bush and Cheney up to Mischief?
According to this
CNN article Vice President Dick "Dick" Cheney has been indicted by
a grand jury in Texas, along with former Attorney-General Alberto
Gonzales on charges related to prisoner abuse in federal detention
centers. This arises from Cheney's investments in companies in charge
of these detention centers (many are privately operated under contract),
and Gonzales halting an investigation into conflicts of interest while
Why is this interesting? The CNN article even says the Attorney-General,
Juan Angel Guerra, of the small county in southernmost Texas
is a loose cannon.
If you notice there have been many informal accusations made against
members of the Bush administration, often by members of Congress,
but almost no indictments lately.
The reason is that Bush made it perfectly clear with his
pardon of "Scooter" Libby that he'll use his presidential
pardon powers to just exonerate any such charges.
So there's little point in charging anyone in the Bush administration
right now, they all have George W Bush "Get Out of Jail Free!" cards.
So Congress may as well wait until the Bush presidency is over
and he loses his pardon powers and then begin indictments. Bush
can't pardon someone who hasn't been charged with any crime (though
no doubt his legal team is pondering that problem also.)
What can Bush do?
Easy! Figure out the charges most likely to be brought against
members of his administration successfully and use his considerable
political influence (particularly in Texas) to get them
indicted and convicted (not sure a conviction is necessary) now so
he can pardon them before he leaves office on January 20th.
As Cheetah would say to Tarzan: It's a jungle out there!
And Begich beats Stevens in Alaska!
This just
It looks like Ted Stevens, the incumbent republican senator from
Alaska and convicted felon, has narrowly lost his re-election
bid to democrat and Anchorage mayor Mark Begich. Begich leads
Stevens by about 3,700 votes as absentee ballots etc. are counted
to determine the winner.
In theory Stevens could pursue a recount, but given that he's a
convicted felon (7 counts of lying about more than $250,000 in
gifts) it puts him into an awkward position to challenge the
result to say the least.
If this result stands then the democrats have 58 seats in the
senate with two more still counting: In Minnesota Al Franken (D)
vs Norm Cole (R) is headed to a recount, they're separated by
a little over 200 votes right now. And in Georgia incumbent
republican Saxby Chambliss versus democrat Jim Martin is headed
to a run-off election on December 2nd. Early voting began on
Monday in the Chambliss/Martin run-off.
If democrats pick up those two seats, and the likelihood is getting
stronger, then they'll have the 60 votes necessary to invoke
cloture, a senate procedure to end a filibuster.
Well, today we found out in a federal report from the "Research
Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses" that Gulf
War Illness is very real.
Worse, any treatment has been delayed for several years due to
funding cuts in research into the disease beginning in 2001.
Ah yes, 2001, 2001...what happened in 2001? Oh right, George Bush
was elected (sort of) president, both houses of congress were dominated
by the republican party. It was a new republican age, morning in
America and all that.
And, oops, guess there wasn't a gold rush to cure our Gulf War veterans!
So much for: The private sector and free markets will provide.
And once again the republicans have really screwed our returning
veterans even as they bellow their super-patriotic, militaristic
How many Gulf War vets have been affected? About one quarter of
the 697,000 who served in the 1991 war, over 174,000 vets.
174,000 sick vets and the republicans cut their medical funding.
That really is sick, pun intended.
The report suggests (remember, the research has been
crippled) the cause of the illness is exposure to
toxic chemicals, including pesticides and a drug
administered to protect against nerve gas.
Symptoms include memory and concentration problems, chronic
headaches, widespread pain, gastrointestinal problems, etc. The
illness may also lead to an increase in ALS, "Lou Gerhig's Disease",
a crippling and always fatal disease.
Basically, the vets were poisoned in so many ways that parts of
their body just couldn't recover fully. Depleted uranium and
anthrax vaccines have been cleared, they're not the cause as
some suggested.
These vets were exposed to these chemicals with reasonable intentions,
to protect them from very deadly nerve gas and to clear out dangerous
insects and parasites from where they had to live and work.
But the simple fact is that they were exposed serving us, so we
owe it to them to make that as right as we can and not sacrifice
them on some altar of republican "thriftiness" while at the same
exact time Bush and the republicans ran up the largest deficits
and increase in the size of the government in the history of the
United States.
This one isn't even hard, as an American I am ashamed of the treatment
of these veterans by our government and hope this can be improved
as soon as possible by the incoming administration.
Begich is 814 votes ahead of Stevens out of 279,000
ballots counted thus far. Another 35,000 ballots remain to be
If Begich takes this race that will give democrats 59 seats in the
senate, one shy of the magic number to invoke cloture should
republicans try to delay legislation via filibuster. Two other
senate races remain undecided:
The Georgia senate race will
be decided by a run-off election on December 2nd. The democratic
challenger Jim Martin has a fair chance of unseating republican incumbent
Saxby Chambliss.
In Minnesota, democratic challenger
Al Franken holds on to a very slim lead over republican
incumbent Norm Coleman in that senate race.
For the democrats to have
60 votes two of these three undecided elections would have to
go for the democrats though there are two independent senators,
Connecticut's Joe Lieberman and Vermont's Bernie Sanders, either or
both of whom might decide to vote with democrats on a cloture
Back to Alaska. If Stevens were to win and then resign or be
removed due to his felony convictions (or any reason for that matter)
that would leave the
Alaska seat open. It's
not entirely clear
whether that would allow Governor Sarah Palin (remember her?) to
appoint a replacement, or if there would be a special election
to replace Stevens. Alaska law just isn't entirely clear on this
matter according to the referenced article. Of course, if Begich
does win then none of this becomes a problem.
The bishops, and anyone else in this country, are certainly within
their rights to express and even, within the law, act on their
But what is it they are "fighting" for? Presidents don't perform
What they are fighting for is two-fold:
First, they don't want the government to make access to abortions
easier, such as by providing financial support for those who
cannot afford an abortion. This is true, but not their primary bone of
What the bishops want is for abortion to be made illegal. This
is something Obama, and other politicians, can help them with
So what they are asking for is that Obama, and his colleagues,
make available law enforcement agents with guns and sticks to
stop women from getting abortions.
That's the bottom line, using the force and power of government,
violence if necessary, to stand between women and abortions.
Which is to say that the bishops have given up on providing
moral authority. Since these women aren't (oh it probably does happen,
but that's not their complaint)
being forced to get abortions, and are just as free to listen
to the arguments against abortion being put forth by
the bishops et al as they are are to get abortions, we
have to assume the bishops' expressed frustration derives from
a failure to get women to follow their advice voluntarily.
Of course, these bishops also condemn any form of birth control
(other than perhaps abstinance or "rhythm".) They oppose
birth control for much the same reason as they oppose abortion.
Yet we don't hear them railing at Obama or anyone else to make
birth control illegal. We suppose they would like to, but it
would only make them look foolish or distance them from their
non-Catholic anti-abortion colleagues: Protestant
fundamentalists don't generally have a problem with birth control.
Since we've now determined that women won't follow these clergies'
advice we have to assume that women will continue to get abortions
even if their wish is granted and big men with sticks and guns
try to stop them, doctors are hauled off to jail, etc.
So it's not really abortions they want Barack Obama to
stop. It's the legality
of abortions they want stopped. They've already failed to stop abortions.
And what are illegal abortions?
You have to be somewhat over 40 years old to remember the era
of illegal abortions but they were nasty affairs performed
in motel rooms or kitchens and without any hospital backup. If,
for example, a woman began bleeding severely, not uncommon,
and the aborter (once illegal, few actual doctors were involved)
couldn't deal with it then the woman was often dumped somewhere
and left to bleed to death. One couldn't risk a hospital for
a botched illegal procedure, they'd ask too many questions.
Many of the illegal abortions were performed by women on
themselves, often on bad advice such as injecting various
irritating household chemicals into their vagina hoping it
would induce abortion. Or using various implements, coat
hangers were indeed a common abortion tool.
This wasn't a big deal for older, wealthy women who could either
pay for a reasonably safe illegal abortion, or fly to some country
where abortion was legal and safe.
So who did the brunt of the death and suffering fall on? The poor,
not even the poor, but the merely average. You had to be quite
rich to afford a safe illegal abortion.
And the young, young women.
But didn't they bring this on themselves?
We hope you
are not overweight and you're getting lots of strenuous exercise,
and otherwise doing everything to avoid health problems. Because
if not then maybe we should suggest that medical help for your
future ailments be made illegal? And certainly don't ski or engage
in any other risky behaviors, driving when not absolutely necessary
by our standards.
No, the limit of polite conversation is
perhaps to charge you slightly higher health insurance premiums,
or perhaps make you pay for such self-induced health problems. But
it's never suggested that we ban you from hospitals and medical
care entirely and let you die clutching your chest or coughing
up blood on some street corner because it was your own
damned fault!
But, of course, that's exactly what these bishops
are suggesting, making a medical procedure illegal and letting
the woman bear the consequences.
But why can't they just love their child, let it be born
and make the best of it? Life can be rough but things can work
It sounds reasonable, aren't these upbeat thoughts so easy when
it's somebody else's life?!
But the bishops also oppose abortion in the case of incest,
rape, and even where carrying the pregnancy to term might
threaten the life of the mother. See our
article on this topic and how McCain just doesn't
believe women tell the truth about these things. Ok,
McCain isn't a Roman Catholic bishop, he's not even a
Roman Catholic. But we believe McCain is expressing
the bishops' sentiments exactly.
So let's get this straight. You're a 15 year old girl.
Your father, or your brother, uncle, etc., raped you.
Now you're pregnant. But hey it's your fault, deal with
it? Have the baby? Why? Because this world is filled
with nothing but love and compassion which will swaddle
your infant like a warm blanket?
Let's be bluntly honest. You can go through a city and
find women with small children living in filth, homeless,
hungry, cold. Mostly we will walk right by them perhaps
shaking our heads at their bad luck, maybe we'll think
of a charity which can help not really knowing why it
isn't helping her.
But being hungry and cold and homeless
is perfectly legal in this country, even if you're a small
child, even if you're a newborn baby. The concern stops at
the moment of birth. You can't call the police to report
a hungry woman with child and expect them to respond. Face it,
we don't really give a damn, except perhaps as convenient
to us, throw a quarter in the bucket and hope it helps.
But abortion? Give these bishops their way and that's exactly
what they will get, law enforcement, the police rushing past the cold, hungry,
homeless woman with child, guns brandished, swinging into
action to stop an illegal abortion!
As Barack Obama has said, and we wholeheartedly agree, no one
is PRO-abortion. The difference is that some of
us would like to see abortions avoided voluntarily rather than
sending in big men with guns and sticks to stop them.
Interesting article from a gynecologist who worked in the days
when abortion was illegal:
...However, not simply coat hangers were used.
Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start
an abortion - darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers,
soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off...
Something both John McCain and Al Gore have in common is that
they each campaigned for president shunning the sitting
president. And they both lost.
In Al Gore's case in 2000 it was President Bill Clinton being
shunned. We don't know the exact reason but it was probably either
that Gore and Clinton didn't get along, or that Gore
wanted to distance himself and his campaign
from the various accusations against
Clinton, or both.
In 2008 Senator John McCain shunned sitting President George
W. Bush. Again, we don't know the exact reason, but it was
probably either that McCain and Bush didn't get along, or that
McCain wanted to distance himself and his campaign from the
widespread unpopularity of GW Bush and his administration, or
Let's assume in both cases it was to avoid association with
the sitting presidents' problems.
It would be an interesting quandary for a candidate. Distancing
oneself from a sitting president within the same party would
seem to telegraph something out of balance to the voting
public. President Bush wasn't even at the Republican National
Convention (his speech was via satellite video.)
John Mccain presented himself to the electorate as a "maverick", but
"outsider" may've been more accurate.
We think McCain's loss was a blessing for many reasons, but
one reason is that he wouldn't have had much sway with the
republicans in Congress. So we would have had the very
strange situation of a sitting president at odds both with
the members of the other party in Congress, and members of
his own party also? I don't think we need to see where that
leads right now with so many red-hot irons in the fire.
An interesting feature on change.gov is the blog with a
stream of items and videos about what is happening with
the transition team.
The agenda area is currently brief and to the point, if we
may quote:
You are also invited to submit your stories and vision.
We think it's a very nice start.
This made us think about California's proposition 8 which
just passed on election day. The proposition's title sums it up:
"Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry"
Californians passed it 52.4% for, 47.6% against with
about 11 million votes cast. The vote difference
was about 500,000 and there remain about 2.7 million
absentee and provisional ballots left to be counted though
it's not thought likely they will change the outcome.
Passing it meant no more gay marriages in California, put simply.
It intends to overturn the California Supreme Court ruling of
May 15, 2008 which said gay marriage was legal under California's
constitution and law.
So, back to injustice versus disorder.
We believe these forces factored into this result.
Tolerance of injustice is relatively easy when you're not the
victim of that injustice. A clever political campaign might go
one step further and convince the electorate they are indeed
the victim of the injustice, just not in the obvious way the
proposition seems to lay out.
The reasoning goes that tolerating gay marriage is an injustice
to the institution of (non-gay) marriage, that it somehow defiles
or dilutes the institution.
Mostly symbolic although perhaps there's
some outside fear that next the rights which come with marriage
such as inheritance or not being compelled to testify against a
spouse in court will be the next target. After all, if anyone
can get married then why should marriage confer any peculiar
rights at all?
But that is getting fairly far-fetched and afield, the proposition
promises no such shoring up of rights under marriage. It doesn't
even attempt to list these rights.
Of course, what the proposition does do is pave a path to
define those rights through this ballot process. That might
be as great a concern to the supporters of proposition 8
as defining marriage. That is, if someone did want to
remove a marriage right, say the right to not testify against
a spouse, the path is now clear: Go out and get it on the ballot.
By challenging the court's ruling they also challenged the court's
authority to protect the very rights they believed they were protecting.
We are not sure we'd like our rights, any rights, up
for grabs in the circus and passions of an election versus
the carefully considered context of a court room.
For gay supporters the issue is much more palpable. Those rights
delineated for married couples, from visitation rights in a hospital
to testifying in court or filing joint tax returns, are practical
matters, not symbols. Either you can stay with a loved one who
is gravely ill in a hospital overnight (often limited to a spouse
or parent), or you cannot.
Supporters might say, alright, we can see that concern, even
a good friend ought to be able sit by your bedside at your
time of need if that is who you want there, marriage seems
almost superfluous to the decision.
Of course, once we go down that road, aren't all marriage
rights subject to extension to most anyone? We can will our
property to anyone, but only a spouse gets certain tax benefits.
Maybe we should extend the tax benefits to a "partner", just
to be fair. And on and on. Until what marriage rights are left?
We argue that this so-called "defense of marriage" proposition is nothing of
the sort. By denying marriage to some it opens the Pandora's box
of a review of those rights currently given in marriage only.
So the injustice we mentioned earlier might well be to the
tradition of marriage. Rather than honoring that tradition
as something special and a conferring of rights it is now
laid bare on the table to be picked apart and extended to
non-married people. This is what terms like "civil union" invite,
the extension of marriage rights to non-married people.
We think the people who voted for this proposition in the belief
that they
were defending marriage were fooled.
They were fooled into thinking that voting for this proposition
avoids disorder, that is, preserves the order they see as
marriage being only between a man and a woman. And, in trade,
tolerates injustice, something preserving order often requires. The injustice
is to gay couples who want to be part of this institution of marriage.
The supporters may have accomplished just the opposite of their
expressed intent and severely weakened
the institution of marriage and any special rights it extends.
Worse, they took this conferring of rights away from the
courts and moved it to the ballot box. As the old adage
goes, can 51% of the electorate vote to kill the other 49%?
We sincerely hope this is not the end of this story, and that more
considered thought prevails.
Al Franken challenged the incumbent Norm Coleman and as of this
writing are separated by
239 votes,
Franken (D): 1,211,540, Coleman (R): 1,211,301, and third-party candidate
Dean Barkley 437,377. That's .008 percent, less than one hundredth
of one percent.
And the recount hasn't even started! These numbers are already
changing from the preliminary review of ballots in
preparation for the coming recount.
If Franken ultimately wins it will push the democrats in the senate
one more vote towards a filibuster-proof majority which would be
Right now the democrats hold 57 seats, republicans 40, independents
2 (Lieberman CT and Sanders VT), with 2 seats
yet to be decided: Franken and Coleman in Minnesota
and Georgia where they'll have a run-off
between republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and democrat James
Martin in December.
If the democrats take both of those seats then they'll have 59 seats, one short
of the magic 60 number. But that would probably give it to the democrats,
Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont, is more likely to vote with
democrats for
which forces the end of
, a tool the minority party (republican) can use to indefinitely delay
a vote on a bill by extending debate endlessly generally offering to stop only
when changes they want are made to the bill or the bill is abandoned
entirely. This can be stopped by invoking the cloture rule which
just ends the debate. But it takes 60 votes and the democrats are
slightly short of that.
We think this 60-vote threshold is over-rated though it is interesting.
Ultimately, a senator has to represent his or her contituents. Hostile
tactics such as filibusters by a few individual minority party
senators can cost, politically, on other matters.
Some famous filibusters went day and night non-stop
and included the reading of telephone books and every word of major
newspapers including the ads insisting that it all
be entered into the congressional record as debate on the matter at hand.
But those were typically small groups of senators fighting the
entire senate and not particularly along party lines. For example,
in the bad old days of segregation senators from the south would
use filibusters to try to stop civil rights legislation.
Threats of filibuster are sometimes effective and have been
used recently, typically to try to force some sort of compromise
on a matter by the minority party.
The point is that with such a decisive democratic majority in both houses
of congress, and the white house, the republicans have to choose their
fights very carefully and with full consideration of their states'
interests as opposed to displays of party loyalty.
Another spectre for the republicans is that of senators switching
party affiliation. Senators can switch affiliation at any time. This
has happened many times over the years, often a minority party
senator moving to the majority party. Again, the consideration
is often their state's interests versus party loyalty. Becoming
a member of the majority party usually puts a senator in a better
position to get their states' interests legislated (that is,
Finally, the number for cloture is not really 60 senators. It's
three-fifths of the sitting senators which is 60 only if all
100 seats are filled. Seats can go empty due to death, illness,
removal (rare, but consider convicted felon Ted Stevens, AK),
or resignation. For example, republican Texas senator Kay Bailey
Hutchison has been hinting that she may resign her senate seat
to run for governor of Texas.
This is a less likely path to
cloture as senate vacancies tend to be filled in a matter of
hours (usually a replacement is appointed by the state's
governor.) But it could happen and leave small periods of
time when the democrats could pass legislation without any
chance of opposition by the republicans. It also doesn't
take very much time to rush a bill to the floor and vote
on it when the senate is in session.
Interesting times!
This election reminded us
of the
riots which ensued
when the ballet The Rite of Spring premiered in
Paris in 1913. People were scandalized, it symbolized
a departure from one world to a new, unknown world. Except
that this time the people who took to the streets seemed happy!
The video in this article was recorded on the streets of Boston
the night of the election, around 12:30AM. Thousands of people
took to the streets in various parts of the city.
The police were everywhere in large groups. This particular
video was shot in Copley Square, in front of the Boston Public
Library. It's worthwhile viewing. We'll add more videos as we
prepare them.
P.S. Sorry that the video is dark but we think it conveys the
event. It was shot on an old Sony DSC-P100.
So what is the electoral college and how might we write a little
about it without putting you to sleep?
The US constitution actually calls for the president and vice-president
to be elected by an indirect method via the electoral college.
The term Electoral College was only first written into law
in 1845 (that oughta settle some heated bar bets!)
There are 538 members (electors) of the electoral college, allocated to
the states: One for each
senator and one for each representative to congress, plus one
for the District of Columbia (why do we always say
Washington, D.C.? Is there any other place in D.C.?)
In order to be elected president or vice-president a candidate must
get an absolute majority of the electors. For 2008 that would
be 270 votes. It's possible that neither candidate gets the
required 270 votes in which case other rules kick in.
In all states plus the District of Columbia it is a winner-takes-all,
whichever candidate wins the popular vote gets all the electoral
votes for that state.
The two exceptions are Maine and Nebraska. They break up the state
into their congressional districts and assign electors based on the
who wins the popular vote in each congressional district.
This means that for most states it's always the number of electors
for the winning candidate and zero for the loser. In Maine and
Nebraska it can (and usually is) split based on the above results.
Now it gets interesting. As far as the federal government is concerned
there is no legal requirement that an elector actually vote according
to the above formulas (winner take all or per district.)
An elector who does not vote according to the state's designated
formula is known as a faithless elector.
24 states have laws which punish faithless electors, but the
punishments aren't very severe and aren't likely to be enforced
anyhow, it probably depends on perceived motivation. Besides, in
all 24 of those states they may only be punished after the
vote is cast so as far as the election itself goes any punishment
is somewhat academic except as a threat beforehand.
In fact, no faithless elector has ever been punished, and
any such punishment has never been decided on for its constitutionality
in the supreme court of the United States. There have been 158
cases of faithless electors in all of US history, and 71 of those
were because the candidate died between election day and December
15th when the electoral college actually votes.
In 1836, 23 Virginia
electors changed their vote together, refusing to vote for
Martin Van Buren's running mate Richard Mentor Johnson for various
reasons, among them his open relationship with a mulatto woman
whom he referred to as his common law wife and with whom he had two daughters.
Johnson became vice-president anyhow. Failing to achieve a majority
the twelfth amendment rules swung in and congress settled the
matter. And that's more than enough on the 1836 election.
Where were we? Oh yes, if you add the 71 electors who changed their
vote because the candidate died to the 23 in 1836 you get 94 faithless
electors accounted for. So, out of a total of 158 there are 64
remaining faithless electors in US history. Not too many.
In 2004 one Minnesota elector cast his vote for president for
John Edwards, apparently by accident. In 2000 the DC elector
refused to vote at all in protest of DC's lack of statehood. In
1976 one elector voted for Ronald Reagan rather than the actual
presidential candidate that year Gerald Ford. In 1972 a
faithless elector voted for a libertarian party candidate. And
on and on.
Faithless electors have never made a difference in the
outcome of a presidential election though in 2000 it was
close, George W. Bush won with 271 electors and the
faithless elector who refused to vote was pledged to Al Gore.
So what effect does our indirect electoral college voting system have on our
Several effects have been postulated but one interesting effect is
that a presidential candidate can win an election by only winning
the winner-take-all electors in eleven (11) states: California,
Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan,
Georgia, New Jersey and South Carolina. The candidate could, in
theory, ignore the other 39 states and DC and still become president.
It's not very likely that any candidate would feel certain enough
of their winning exactly those 11 states so the effect is probably
remote but it does illustrate that candidates would do well in
concentrating on those states in their efforts. Some would say
that makes for lopsided elections and election platorms.
Conversely, this system gives disproportionate (compared to
their population) weight to low-population states such as
Alaska. Alaska has three electoral votes for a population
of about 680,000 or one electoral vote per 226,000. In
contrast, Calfornia has 55 electors for a population of
36.5 million or one elector per 663,000 (we assume these
proportions roughly reflect the voting population.) So
each voter's vote in Alaska has over twice the clout as
each Californian's.
Others have criticized the electoral college system because
it discourages people from bothering to vote in states where
the outcome is pretty well known before election day. For example,
it's highly, highly, (did we say highly?) likely that the
popular vote in Massachusetts will go for Barack Obama today.
Since the electors are chosen winner-take-all it doesn't matter if
Obama wins MA by one vote or one million votes, he gets the same
number of electors from MA (12, for those keeping score at home.)
So, the reasoning goes, once you're fairly certain the vote in
your state will go a particular way why bother to vote at all?
Well, as a public service, one good answer is that there will be
other elections on your ballot which are voted by direct
vote. For example, all congressmen/women/others are up for
election this year, and there are probably some local elections
in your district for dog catcher or something you wouldn't want
to miss out on.
And, besides, the media is going to crow and crow
about the popular result for each presidential candidate
and how much of a mandate it seems to gives him. A president
with a landslide in the popular election can feel more confident
about the attractiveness of his policies to the voters than one
who barely squeaked by (or, in the case of our current president,
didn't win the national vote at all in 2000.)
So you should go out and vote anyhow...go ahead...we'll wait...
Conversely, if the president were instead chosen by popular vote
then every vote would count because your vote for Obama in
MA might nullify a vote for McCain in Nebraska. Under the electoral
college system there is no such effect, MA can go for Obama and
NE can go for McCain regardless of how you vote in MA.
Only three times in US history has the electoral college vote
gone the opposite of the nation's popular vote as a whole.
1876 democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by over
3% but lost the
electoral college vote to Rutherford B Hayes by one vote in
a very heated and historic contest. In 1888 the democrat,
Grover Cleveland, beat republican Benjamin Harrison in the
popular vote by about 1% but Harrison won with 233 electoral
votes versus Cleveland's 168.
Finally, and probably fresh in a lot of your minds, in 2000
Al Gore won the popular vote by about a half percentage point
(about 500,000 votes), but George Bush won the election,
271 electoral votes to Gore's 266.
One last question: Who are these electors, how are they chosen? (Ok,
perhaps that was two questions.)
How they are chosen varies from state to state though not by much,
it's basically party politics with a few exceptions where they're
chosen in a primary election. The constitution
only forbids them from being federal office holders or otherwise
sworn an oath to the United States but later rebelled against
the US (this came up during the Civil War.)
The names of
the electors are made available shortly after the election,
this page
for details. You can also find a link to the 2004 electors on that
web page.
In practice it doesn't matter a lot who the actual electors are because
their vote is pre-ordained by the state's (or congressional district's)
popular vote. The only exception is if an election result hung on
the decision of a faithless elector or other irregularity (e.g., a
candidate dying) leaving the choice entirely up to the elector.
For even more gruesome details on the electoral college and its history:
Well, that was pretty boring, sorry, but at least we kept it reasonably
short and to the point.
Ok, there are only 21 voters in Dixville Notch. But it's the
first time since 1968 the town has gone for the democrat.
Obama's major opponent, John McCain, does not get our
support. Here is why.
When Obama speaks of change he is promising a change
in direction for this country, something which is so sorely needed.
When John McCain speaks of change, he is only referring to a change
in direction for his republican party which has strayed so far
from common sense and even their own dignity under George W. Bush.
We hope the republicans find their way and we wish them luck. The
republican party has been dominated by neo-conservative ideologues who
try to respond to every problem which comes their way by consulting
magic decoder rings and producing predictable, formulaic
answers. They have also pandered for votes from a right-wing fringe
whose thought processes, to be frank, sometimes scares us.
claiming to lead the so-called "Christian Right" the republicans have only
put them at odds with much of the rest of the country and
let fear present them as a freak show. We know there
are a lot of decent, thoughtful, people who also happen to be
very serious about their religion. They need to begin speaking
with their own voices, not through the voices of republican spin doctors.
Throughout the Bush administration
republicans increased spending and the size of government while
cutting taxes. This led to the largest increase in government
debt in US history and, ultimately, to our current financial
John McCain is correct, his party needs a change. We don't know if
he's the man to do it, but at least he admits they have a big problem.
But that's not what we want in a president. We want a person who
can lead our country out of the current crisis and into
a brighter future, not a president who promises to use his office
to improve the republican brand. The republicans can fight that
fight among themselves without dragging the rest of the country
through their pain.
John McCain likes to label himself a "maverick". To a great
extent this is his way of distancing himself from the mainstream
republican party and in particular George W. Bush.
But what we fear most from a John McCain presidency is that we will
soon find out that he really has no influence within
the republican party. Another
way to look at the word "maverick" is "outsider".
A John McCain presidency would be deadlocked and
ineffective, the last thing we need right now.
McCain would almost certainly face a democratic
majority in both houses of Congress putting himself and
Congress in serious conflict.
McCain would also be unable to lead his
congressional republican party members
because they don't want to change, and they
have never given John McCain any respect. That's
why he's a "maverick":
His fellow republicans
have never listened to his oppositions to their overspending
and other disasterous policies over the past several years.
If they had, he'd be a leader, not a maverick.
Finally, as many have noted, McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his
vice-presidential running mate was reckless and cynical at best.
McCain is elderly and in poor health, he's had several bouts with
cancer in recent years. Sarah Palin has been described by her own
republican advisers as a "whack job". She seems to have little
or no grasp of the issues.
Worse, she seems to have contempt for such "book learnin'". We
have no way of knowing what she would base her decisions on if she
were to become president but we fear the worst, a mind in darkness
following not reason, but emotion. This world has never been
kind to the willfully ignorant.
In contrast, Barack Obama is smart, energetic, and in lockstep with
his party who will dominate Congress during his administration.
Obama seems to us to truly want to try to work out the problems
this nation faces and to do so by tapping into the best talent
he can find.
In the United States a president
is surrounded by literally thousands of people who are expert
in the issues: Foreign policy
experts in the State Department, military experts in
the pentagon, economic experts in various branches of
government, Treasury, GAO, etc.
Ours is not a kingdom or dictatorship, the president does not act alone
on the isssues which affect America and the world. The president
is the executive leader of a vast and complex machine we call government.
Obama and Biden seem to understand and represent that reality. McCain
and Palin do not, they seem to us uncomfortable with the actual job
they are running for.
For these reasons we urge you to vote for Barack Obama, Joe
Biden, and democrats tomorrow.
McCain's words drip with
contempt for women, he accuses women of lying about their health
to get abortions. Mere seconds after Obama says nobody,
including himself, is pro-abortion McCain just throws back the
pro-abortion label.
John McCain divorced his first wife, Carol, shortly after returning
from Vietnam. His first wife had been in a near-deadly car accident
and was still recovering.
John McCain proceeded to have an affair with beer heiress Cindy McCain,
18 years his junior, as his wife painfully learned to walk again.
John McCain filed for a divorce from still recovering
first-wife Carol and one month later married current-wife Cindy.
And what does his first-wife Carol have to
say about all this
My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be
25. You know that happens...it just does.
Carol (Shepp) McCain,
John McCain's first wife
and mother of their daughter Sidney
Carol (Shepp) McCain,
John McCain's first wife
and mother of their daughter Sidney
First wife Carol, John McCain, daughter Sidney, and two sons
She's losing her re-election. Yay! That should be the LEAST that happens
to her.
"Liddy" Dole ran a TV ad which FALSIFIED the voice of her opponent
democrat Kay Hagen. Her campaign admits this.
What did she have an actress who faked Kay Hagen's voice say?
Fake Hagen: "There is no god"
This was in an ad which tried to tie Hagen to an atheist group which
Hagen had no ties to, so Dole had to make it up and pay
to have Hagen's voice faked.
Hagen has now put out a TV ad in which she unequivocally condemns
Dole, as a fellow Christian, for bearing false witness.
These are the sort of low-life scum who have taken over the republican
party. It's time they saw the inside of jail cells! C'mon North
Carolina, show some decency and stand up to this dirtbag, arrest her!
P.S. Liddy Dole is a good friend of George Bush and John McCain. Her
elderly husband ran for president in 1996 and later starred in a bunch of
viagra commercials alongside Britney Spears. What a class act (NOT!)
"It must be true!" said the republican vice-presidential
candidate, "why else would I say this unless
god put these words in my mouth?"
[editor: Someone throw a bucket of water on her!]
Jay Leno
Of course, the reasonable attitude is "who cares what the reason
is? I'll take it!" And we agree 100%, take it!
But don't forget those $4/gallon gas prices when you go to the polls and
a republican party dominated by oil men. Isn't it
interesting that gas prices across Texas
are under $2/gallon with
prices as low as $1.75/gallon in Laredo?
Bush used to be governor
of Texas, VP Dick Cheney quickly switched his residency from
Texas to Wyoming (he used to be a congressman from Wyoming,
elected 1978) so
he could run for Vice-President. The constitution says the
presidential and vice-presidential candidate can't be from
the same state, but doesn't really specify what that means, what
the minimum residency requirements are. So Dick Cheney, who
was head of Bush's vice-presidential selection committee in
2000, suggested himself as the best candidate and promptly
"switched" his state residency. But the oil connections and
roots in Texas for both the president and vice-president are
very, very deep.
It's no surprise that this republican gas price holiday should
benefit Texas most.
But don't be fooled, you're being manipulated.
Those $4/gallon gas prices will be back shortly after the election. In
fact, global oil prices are rising sharply today, up almost 10%. It
takes a few weeks for global oil prices to affect prices at the pump.
The oil men are already champing at the bit.
Chris Rock
He told CNN,
basically, that McCain's health insurance plan won't work.
a very good summary of this on the
Huffington Post but let
us make it short and sweet.
First, McCain's plan would give you a $5,000 tax credit if you
leave your employer's plan and buy your own
health insurance on the open market.
Second, McCain's plan would tax employer health insurance for
the first time in history.
Some have criticized that because younger, healthier people
would be offered cheaper health insurance they'd be most
likely to leave their employer health plans and use this
$5,000 McCain health insurance tax credit.
Another criticism is that $5,000/year won't buy health insurance
for very many people. Right now the national average is more
like $12,000/year when you include employer contributions.
When asked about this McCain senior economic adviser
Holtz-Eakins took these two facts and
said the younger and healthier won't leave their employer
plans anyhow because, as we said, the $5,000 tax credit won't
even buy them health insurance.
Why is that so? Because the health insurance employers offer is based on a big
pool of employees. This has two effects. First, it's a bigger
sale, selling insurance for 1,000 employees in one contract is just
way more efficient for the insurance company than selling contracts
one person at a time.
For example, even modest-sized companies
will handle many of the details through their own human resources
departments. Selling the contracts one by one to individuals
removes that support and now the insurance companies have to
deal with all the details of renewals, benefits questions, plan change
details and qualifications, etc. In brief, the insurance
companies need more support people working for them with
individual health insurance contracts, and they
have to pay those people out of your premiums.
Second, even a supposedly young and healthy person can have
an expensive illness. For example, a car accident or if they
have family coverage a child's illness or problematic pregnancy.
Younger, healthier people are also the ones who have young
or new children.
Spreading that risk across hundreds, or thousands in a large
company, of young
people is certainly cheaper for the health insurance company than
trying to guess whether or not this individual who just
asked for health insurance might have a big health expense.
One person might get into a serious car accident, but
out of a 1,000 very few will, so the health insurance
company gets to average the potential cost across the
whole group when setting the premium, so can offer a lower
premium to groups.
McCain's senior economic adviser not only admits this, but
puts this reasoning forward as why younger, healthier people
won't leave their employee plans for "free market" health
insurance: In a nutshell, because it won't be cheaper.
But then why does McCain want to give a $5,000 tax credit
so people can go get their own insurance when they know
it won't make any sense to get their own health insurance?
Ideology, specifically, right-wing ideology, won out over reason
and simple arithmetic. It's the Republican Party in a nutshell.
So what's left of the McCain health insurance plan?
Nothing but a new tax on your health insurance.
Still believe McCain stands for lower taxes?
John McCain is currently the Republican Ranking Member
of the Senate Armed Services
Committee whose responsibilities include the Selective Service System
("the draft".)
As to the preamble by the audience member describing the sad
condition of medical services for veterans we can only say that
John McCain has been a member of the Senate since 1983, over 25
years, and has frequently advertised himself as a champion of
veterans. Apparently, that hasn't helped them.
Palin buddy, Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, guilty on all counts
Alaskan Republican senator Ted Stevens, fighting to retain his seat,
has just been found guilty on all felony corruption charges:
1. False statements: Scheme to conceal information guilty.
2. False statements: 2001 financial disclosure form guilty.
3. False statements: 2002 financial disclosure form guilty.
4. False statements: 2003 financial disclosure form guilty.
5. False statements: 2004 financial disclosure form guilty.
6. False statements: 2005 financial disclosure form guilty.
7. False statements: 2006 financial disclosure form guilty.
Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and republican vice-presidential
nominee has been a
close pal of Ted Stevens, serving as director of his 527 group.
In a joint conference with Stevens
Palin recently said "she had not abandoned him politically".
More later...
1. Newspapers which endorsed George W Bush in 2004 but endorse
Barack Obama in 2008 (28 newspapers):
2. Newspapers which endorsed John Kerry in 2004 but endorse
John McCain in 2008 (4 newspapers.)
CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera is generally a doctrinaire
republican pouring out unconditional love for her favorite party
and John McCain whenever the opportunity arises.
But what does she say in response to the seemingly (to some)
counter-intuitive polling result that the wealthy are showing
Obama a lot of love? It's near the end of the linked video:
And it's not just the stock market.
GDP, gross domestic product, which measures the
total output of the United States, has also fared better under
In a new
Reuters reports that it's no longer pockets of the country
where gas prices are under $3/gallon
(see previous article):
The US national gas price average has fallen to $2.91.
And like 2006 it'll probably be back where it was (over $4/gallon)
shortly after the election. One ray of hope is that if the democrats
win gasoline will probably go down sharply after they take
office in January, for years, maybe forever,
as alternative energy sources will finally be taken seriously.
"First -- a couple of ground rules. You can't blame the press or
minorities ... finger-pointing is only interesting when
you point at someone on your team. Republicans need a civil war --
a steel cage death match -- to sort out what they stand
for. Scapegoating outsiders won't purge the
party of what's rotting it on the inside..."
There are 32 retirements, 6 democrat and 26 republican.
Perhaps the most interesting "retirement" is Vito Fossella, republican
representative from New York's 13 congressional district which would
be Staten Island and the westernmost chunk of Brooklyn. Rep Fossella
was first elected in a special election in 1997 to replace retiring Susan
On May 1, 2008 Fossella was arrested in Alexandria, VA for
driving while intoxicated. Apparently he was driving home after
kicked out of Logan Tavern
though in all fairness it sounds like any trouble was caused by
a companion who kept passing out.
Fossella, married to Mary Patricia Rowan with three
children, then admitted to having an extra-marital affair
with Air Force Lt Colonel Laura Fey, and that he was the father
of their three-year old child. All indications are that he
has been leading a double-life with two families.
Fossella has subsequently announced that he will not seek
re-election in 2008.
Ohio's 11th Congressional district, greater Cleveland on
the shores of Lake Erie, is vacant due to the recent
death of democrat Stephanie Tubb Jones of an aneurysm on
August 20, 2008. Warrensville Heights Mayor Marcia Fudge
is all but certain to win that spot.
All of Alaska is just one congressional district represented
by representative Don Young, a republican since 1973. At 75
years of age Young isn't so young but is running again for
re-election. He's being challenged by democrat Ethan Berkowitz
and Alaskan independence party Don Wright.
Young once called environmentalists
"a self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual
in an outburst in Congress. Young was closely associated with
the "bridge to nowhere" pork spending project. The proposed bridge,
budgeted at $225M, would have connected Ketchikan, Alaska to
Gravina Island, population 50.
In July, 2007 the Wall Street Journal
reported that Young was under federal investigation for
money he received from the Alaska-based oil pipeline
company VECO Corporation (no longer an independent company.)
At this point there is a good chance Young will lose to democrat
challenger Berkowitz.
In California's 4th congressional district,
the northeastern corner of the state on the border of Nevada and
including Truckee and Placer (a suburb of Sacramento),
former republican Deputy Whip
John Doolittle is likely facing
indictment in the
Abramoff scandal and has announced his retirement from the house.
Democrat Charlie Brown, who narrowly lost
to Doolittle in 2006, and Republican Tom McClintock are vying
for Doolittle's seat. The race is currently
very close.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco's 8th district
is expected to win re-election against republican Dana Walsh.
"Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan has declared as an independent candidate
in this race and will appear on the ballot.
Republican incumbent Brian Bilbay might be vulnerable to a challenge
by democrat Nick Leibham in California's 50th district just northwest
of San Diego proper on the coast.
In Colorado democrat Mark Udall has left his seat in
the 2nd district (Boulder area) to run for senate. Democrat
Jared Polis is expected to defeat republican and unity party
candidate Bill Hammons.
Another interesting race in Colorado is for the slot
vacated by Tom Tancredo in his unsuccessful bid for the
republican presidential nomination. The 6th district just
south of Denver (includes Littleton) is heavily republican
and likely to remain republican and give the win to
secretary of state Mike Coffman over democrat Hank Eng.
Connecticut's, and New England's,
only republican congressman, Christopher Shays, is in a close
race with former Goldman Sachs executive and democrat Jim Himes.
The 4th district, which includes Stamford and Bridgeport,
went solidly for John Kerry in 2004.
In the Connecticut 5th district which streches from Danvers up along
the New York border to the Massachusetts border and east
to Meridien and New Britain (near Hartford), democrat
Chris Murphy seems to be fighting for his seat against
state senator David Cappiello.
There's a fierce fight for Florida's 8th district which
includes Orlando for republican incumbent Ric Keller's seat.
Democratic challenger Alan Grayson is on the democrat's
"Red to Blue" list which entitles him to additional campaign
funds. Keller had pledged to serve only four terms but is
running for his fifth in 2008. Right now Keller appears to
have a significant lead in this district which went 55% for
George Bush in 2004.
You might recall republican
Mark Foley who got himself embroiled in a scandal
involving text messaging congressional pages. His seat was taken over
by democrat Tim Mahoney. Florida's 16th district includes
the fabulously tony Palm Beach and leans heavily republican. Mahoney
is thought to have won in 2006 at least in part due to Foley's
name remaining on the ballot despite his withdrawal from the race.
The republican challenger is Tom Rooney. It's likely the republicans
will take back this seat.
Florida's 21st district includes Hialeah and former
Hialeah mayor Raul L. Martinez is challenging republican
incumbent Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Normally this district would
be expected to go for the republican but the former mayor
may prove a formidable challenger.
Democrat John Barrow in Georgia's 12th district is facing
a tough challenge from former republican representative Max Burns.
The district runs along the Georgia coastline from Augusta to
Savannah and west to Vidalia home of the onion.
Stay tuned for part 2...
But President Obama's first task will be to humbly apologize. That is,
to humbly apologize to the United States of America and the world on
behalf of the US government:
Sure, it will be President Obama voicing an American people
apologizing to itself and for itself. But it needs to be
As they say in personal recovery programs: First, you have
to admit you have a problem.
Let's take a look at some of the more interesting:
Perhaps the most interesting is Joe Biden who is running
both as the Vice-Presidential candidate with Barack Obama and
is on the ballot in Delaware as the democratic candidate for
senator. This is alllowed and should Biden win both elections
he can resign from his senate seat and the governor, a democrat,
can appoint a replacement. Biden's opponent is Christine
O'Donnell, a "political commentator" she has never held elected office.
You may have seen her on Fox news or Entertainment Tonight.
Democrat Dick Durbin, Illinois is interesting because he's
the Senate Majority Whip but he's highly favored to win.
Mary Landrieu is the incumbent democrat in Louisiana. Louisiana
has become much more republican recently and last year voted in
Bobby Jindal as its republican governor. Nonetheless she is expected
to win against state treasurer John N. Kennedy who switched parties
from democrat to republican for this race.
John Kerry, democratic presidential candidate in 2004, is running
essentially unchallenged in Massachusetts although the ballot
will list republican Jeff Beatty, a relative unknown.
Carl Levin, democrat from Michigan and one of the most powerful
people in Washington is expected to easily regain his seat. He
is running against republican Jack Hoogendyk, libertarian
Scotty Berman and Mike Nitikin from the US Taxpayers Party / Constitutional
84 year old Frank Lautenberg, democrat from New Jersey, may be in
a close race against former congressman Dick Zimmer.
85 year old Ted Stevens, republican senator from Alaska, is fighting
a number of interesting battles. Besides being up for election he's
also on the stand testifying about bribes and corruption from
oil companies. Two executives from Veco Corp. have already plead
guilty to bribing Stevens! Stevens is facing seven felony counts.
His challenger is Mark Begich, mayor of Anchorage.
Saxby Chambliss was the guy in 2002 who won his Georgia senate
seat by, among other things, painting his opponent incumbent
Max Cleland, as a "friend of Osama bin Laden". This despite the
fact that Cleland is a triple amputee from injuries he received
serving in the Vietnam War. His democratic challenger this time
around is Jim Martin, Georgia commissioner of Human Resources
and former general assembly member. Martin is also a Vietnam
Mitch McConnell's bid to retain his seat in Kentucky is interesting
because McConnel is republican senate minority leader. McConnell
has been very supportive of President Bush which may hurt him. The
democratic candidate is Bruce Lunsford, businessman and US Army
Republican Norm Coleman is running against former Saturday Night Live
writer, comedian, and talk show host Al Franken in Minnesota. Eighteen
candidates are running for this seat! Seven from the Democratic
Farmer-Labor party, two Republican Party, seven Independent Party,
one Libertarian Party and one Constitution party. Former senator
Dean Barkely is running as the Independence Party candidate. This
one may be too strange to handicap. Eighteen candidates! Whoo-hoo.
In Mississippi, Roger Wicker has been serving out Trent Lott's
senate term since Lott resigned last year. Wicker is the republican
candidate for this seat. He's challenged by former governor Ronnie
In New Hampshire, republican incumbent John Sununu is being challenged
by former governor Jeanne Shaheen. This has been a bitter, mud-slinging
race and should be close with a slight preference given at this time
to Shaheen unseating Sununu in November.
Elizabeth Dole, husband of 1996 republican presidential candidate
Bob Dole (perhaps you remember his viagra commercials?) is being
challenged in North Carolina
by a relatively unknown state senator Kay Hagan. It looks
like Hagen might beat Liddy Dole who has been closely associated
with President Bush over the years.
In Oregon republican incumbent Gordon Smith is facing stiff opposition
(no reference to Bob Dole's viagra ads) from democratic challenger
Jeff Merkley. Merkely is Oregon house of representatives speaker.
We may see an upset for Texas republican senator John Cornyn by
challenger Rick Noriega. It's a long shot for Noriega, but polls
indicate the race may be close.
Both Wyoming senators are up for election due to the special
election for Craig L Thomas' seat. Thomas died on June 4th. John
Barrasso is the appointee and is running in the republican slot.
The other Wyoming senator up for election is incumbent republican
Michael Enzi. Both are very likely to be re-elected, there are no
serious challengers.
There are five senators retiring, all republicans.
Wayne Allard, Colorado republican, so Bob Schaffer is running against
democrat Mark Udall. The race is expected to be very close with a
slight leaning towards democrat Udall at this point.
Butt of many jokes due to his arrest for soliciting sex in
an airport bathroom (it's not "allegedly" when the perp
signs a confession, right?), republican Larry Craig, is retiring from his
seat in Idaho. The republican running to fill his seat (no pun
intended) is Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch and the democrat is
Larry La Rocco. Most likely Risch will win easily.
Republican Chuck Hegal retires from his Montana seat. The republican
nominee is former governor Mike Johanns and Scott Kleeb is the
on the democratic ticket. It seems likely at this point that
Johanns will win easily in this reddest of red states.
Pete Domenici won't run for re-election for his seat as
the republican representing New Mexico in the senate due
to a degenerative brain disorder. Domenici is also under
investigation for his involvement in the firing of US Attorney
David Iglesias. So it's democrat Tom Udall (pop-quiz: how many Udalls
in these races? And who was Mo Udall and is he related to any of them?)
versus republican Steve Pearce. It looks like democrat Tom Udall
might take this one, allegedly the national republican party has
pulled back funding from Pearce.
John Warner, republican senator from Virginia, who was once married
to Elizabeth Taylor!!!, has decided to retire. Running in the republican
slot is former governor Jim Gilmore versus another former governor
Mark (no relation) Warner running as the democrat. It looks like
Mark (no relation) Warner will easily win over Gilmore.
Here's a great link to information about these races:
And guess what? Gas prices are coming down fast, just as we predicted:
USA Today, October 14, 2008: Gas prices fall 33 cents in largest weekly price
drop ever
What's backfiring is that the drop in gas prices are being attributed
to the republican collapse of the economy. Oops!
We appreciate lower gas prices, but not if it means skyrocketing
unemployment and bank panics! And especially not if it's just a
ploy to get us another four years of Bush "economic policies" from
John McCain.
Hi Levi! Go ahead, knock her up and drop out of high school.
Only the unborn have any right to a future. That's Conservative
Family Values!
It's unfortunate when a kid drops out of high school. Particularly
a kid who should have all the advantages.
We know that many drop out of high school due to various reasons,
many out of their control,
family financial needs, bad advice and role models, whatever. Just
the same it's always sad when this happens. Do we agree on that
at least? That it's sad when a kid drops out of high school?
But Levi Johnston's mother-in-law-to-be is the Governor of Alaska,
Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
What does Sarah Palin think about this? Does she think this is all
going well? These aren't poor people, this is the governor of
Sure, having a baby when you're both 18 is a tough start, both emotionally,
time-wise, and financially. There's no doubt about that.
But where's the family values here? Where's the governor's support
for her daughter? Has she actually disowned the two of them?
Or does Sarah Palin think this is an ok trade-off, that a high school
diploma isn't important, let the boy drop out and work?
Sarah Palin is not poor. She's actually quite wealthy by most
people's standards.
As governor she's paid $125,000 per year, her husband makes somewhat
less, closer to $50,000 per year, so mom and dad take home $175,000/year
in salary. That's hardly poor.
The Palins own a half-million dollar home on a lake, and a float plane,
and two vacation homes.
With other sources of income included such as the state oil royalties
and investment income their combined income for 2007 will be about
I don't know about you, but if I were in that position, and maybe
even about to become vice-president of the united states (salary: $208,100
but lots of financial opportunities such as paid speaking engagements)
I wouldn't let my 18 year old son-in-law, the kid about to be my
daughter's husband and father of her child, drop out of high school if
I could possibly help it. I'd tell him to get whatever part-time job
he can manage for now and I'd help cover expenses. If I owned a big
home like the Palins I'd offer to let them live there until they
can properly be on their own.
But, like many of these "conservative family values" they seem to
end with the grandstanding and telling other people what to do.
Why are Sarah Palin's daughter and future son-in-law being treated
like hard-luck cases?
Oh let's make this simple: Does the Sarah Palin family have their heads up
their asses? Or are they just swell with their future son-in-law dropping
out of high school despite the fact that they could easily afford better?
They can paint it any color they like but this is a tragedy, plain
and simple.
What the committee report concluded is that she
did what she's accused of, used her office as governor to try to
get her former brother-in-law Mike Wooten
fired from his state trooper job, and in frustration fired this guy
Monegan who they were pressuring to fire Wooten when he wouldn't cooperate. It
was apparently in retaliation (against Wooten) over a bitter divorce
from Sarah Palin's sister, Molly:
Governor Sarah Palin abused her power as Governor in that her conduct violated
AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act, which provides "The legislature reaffirms
that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to
benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation
of that trust."
Well, Sarah Palin is crankin' up a list for when she's Vice-President
you betcha! Here are some items we can expect:
Worse, if you in any way tamper with the ballot such as crossing off
the "Osama" and pencilling in "Obama" your ballot would be invalid and
not counted! Oh, gosh, votes for Barack Obama invalidated? I'm sure
that would just break the hearts of republicans.
"This was a typo" was what Republican elections commissioner for
the county Larry Bugbee said..."We have three different staff members
who proof these things and somehow the typo got by us."
Arrest Larry Bugbee, and maybe those staff members, this is elections
tampering. His explanation is so unlikely it defies reason.
Professor Ayers teaches Urban School Change, Youth and the Modern
Predicament, Teaching for Justice and Democracy, Interpretive Research,
and the Cultural Contexts of Teaching. He has been at UIC for a number of
years. He has written extensively about the importance of creating
progressive educational opportunities in urban public schools. His book,
To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, was named Book of the Year by Kappa
Delta Pi and won the Written Award for Distinguished Work in Biography and
Autobiography. His interests focus on the political and social contexts of
schooling and the meaning and ethical purposes of teachers, students, and
But let's go a little deeper...
First, McCain calls Ayers a "domestic terrorist" for his
activities in the 1960s but Ayers
has never been convicted of a single crime related to
any of this.
So, if McCain felt so strongly about Ayers then maybe in his
26 years as a Senator he may've shown some interest in charging
Ayers with some crime. Senators can make that sort of thing happen.
Did McCain knowingly allow a "domestic terrorist" to roam freely
in this country? Nonsense.
But even that's not the point.
Ayers was a member of the Weathermen or Weather Underground.
What was that organization? Just another of the many anti-Vietnam
War groups filled with idealistic young people many of whom were
facing a draft into that senseless meat-grinder of a war in which
over 50,000 young men died. For what? For nothing.
So, guess what? Ayers and his friends were right! Vietnam was
a stupid war, just like Iraq is a stupid war.
40 years from now are we going to be demonizing people who were
members of anti-Iraq war groups today as somehow pro-terrorist
or terrorist themselves?
Let's be honest, when McCain and his puppet, Sarah "Rabid Avon Lady" Palin say
"terrorist" it's because "commie pinko bastard" just doesn't work
anymore. That's what republicans called people who voiced opposition
to the Vietnam War back in that era, "commie pinko bastards". Nice.
Today if you're from that witch-hunting republican looney fringe, as McCain
and Palin are, you try to tie anyone who disagrees with you to
It's just like the red-baiting, commie-baiting of
years past, trying to distract from (back then) the fact that
we should've gotten out of Vietnam years before we did. Oh no,
they'd say,
that would just've made the commies happy you commie pinko
bastards! Yeah, there's a good idea, let's get another 50,000
American boys killed because we wouldn't want to make some commie pinko bastards
Basically the strategy is to distract from the real issue, like
what the hell is our goal in Iraq?, to just painting
anyone who disagrees with you as some sort of monster.
If John McCain actually had any judgement he would've denounced
the Vietnam war as a mistake by now! Sure, we honor his
service and his unimaginable experiences as a prisoner of war.
But that doesn't make it impossible for someone with good judgment
to admit that the whole Vietnam war was a terrible, terrible error.
So, imagine that, Bill Ayers is right! John McCain is wrong!
And I guess we're still commie pinko bastards. Hah!
Anyhow, this country has much more important issues than whether or not
Barack Obama ever sat in the same room as Professor Ayers.
This happened in 2006 also. In August 2006 gasoline was over $3.00/gallon
(historical price source:
United States Department of Energy, EIA).
From there the price of gasoline dropped steadily,
by November 6th, 2006, the day before the election,
the average US gasoline pump price had dropped to $2.23/gallon.
Well, guess what? It's happening again. Amazing!
In late July 2008 gasoline peaked at just over $4.00/gallon.
Since this past July pump prices have been falling steadily week
by week, $3.88, $3.81, $3.75, $3.70, a small upwards blip in
September but $3.56 on this past October 6th.
And guess what:
But watch out. After the 2006 election gasoline prices went
right back up, by spring they were well over $3.00/gallon which
was high way back then, peaking at $3.23/gallon for the week of
May 28, 2007.
If you're wondering how the US can possibly manipulate gasoline
prices see our article on
exactly that.
That said it's not surprising that when the US sneezes the world
catches a cold.
This has been the case with this current financial
crisis which indisputably started and deepened in the US and is
only now spreading to Asia, Russia, and Europe.
A quick summary of the past several hours!.
Let's keep going...
Why did the housing market collapse? Because the republican
congress and president ran up over THREE TRILLION dollars
in new debt. To sell that debt, they had to sell it as
treasury bonds, they kept increasing the interest rates. Mortgage
rates are tied to those interest rates.
That soured the
housing market and began pushing a lot of people, about
a million, with adjustable rate mortgages into default, they
couldn't keep up with the quickly rising monthly payments. And
it also soured new home buyers, mortgages were costing more and
How did the republicans run up $3 trillion in new debt 2001-2006?
They increased spending while giving you tax cuts! That's
ridiculous, and we now know where it leads.
Still like your Bush tax cut?
Because John McCain and the republican party are promising
This is a complete failure of an ideology, a republican
ideology, that cutting taxes, deregulating, and increasing spending
will somehow bring prosperity.
How was it supposed to bring prosperity? That's not clear.
When republicans "sold" the idea all they'd say as they
irresponsibly cut taxes is "it's YOUR money". When they
deregulated the banks and Wall Street firms they'd say
"let's get government out of the way!"
That's not a PLAN. That's an IDEOLOGY, a belief system,
almost like a religion, faith before reason.
And now McCain, Palin, and other republican candidates are praying for
a miracle.
They'd better get themselves to church!
Cindy McCain founded the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT)...It was a
non-profit organization that organized trips for doctors, nurses, and other
medical personnel to provide MASH-like emergency medical care to
disaster-struck or war-torn third-world areas...
In 1989,
Cindy McCain became addicted to Percocet and Vicodin, opioid
which she initially took to alleviate pain...
she resorted to
having an AVMT physician write illegal prescriptions in the names of three AVMT
employees without their knowledge...In 1992, her parents staged an intervention
to force her to get help...she told her husband [ed. John MCain]
about her problem, attended a drug treatment facility...
In January 1993, Tom Gosinski, an AVMT employee, who had discovered her illegal
drug use, was terminated on budgetary grounds... Subsequently, he tipped off
the Drug Enforcement Administration, and a federal investigation
McCain's defense team, led by John McCain's Keating Five lawyer
John Dowd, secured an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office for McCain, a
first-time offender, that
avoided charges while requiring her to pay financial restitution...
Meanwhile, in early 1994 Gosinski filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against
[ed. Cindy] McCain, which he told her he would settle for $250,000...
In response, Dowd [ed. Cindy Mccain's lawyer] characterized this request
as blackmail and requested that officials investigate Gosinski for extortion.
Knowing that the
DEA prosecutors were about to publicly disclose her past
[ed. Cindy] McCain preemptively revealed the story to reporters
saying she was
doing so willingly: "Although my conduct did not result in compromising any
missions of AVMT, my actions were wrong, and I regret them."
AVMT concluded its activities in 1995 in the wake of the McCain narcotics
prescriptions controversy...
I'll guess that any of you who may've gotten in serious trouble with the law,
drug addiction and forging prescriptions for your drugs is serious trouble,
would've liked to have
been able to just flip a few bucks in the prosecutor's direction
and walk!
Well, we'll guess only if you're rich and your husband is a
senator that you can treat serious drug crimes like parking tickets.
We really don't need these Beverly Hillbilly's in the White House,
we'd have to change its name to the White Trash House.
About 750,000 homes are currently in foreclosure [1].
Assume the average mortgage is $200,000. In a moment you'll see
you can double or halve that if you like.
That means the total value of all mortgages in foreclosure is
about 150 billion dollars. Double the average mortgage to
$400,000 and you get 300 billion dollars, but it's not that
high, let's call it 200 billion dollars for argument's sake.
So how come taxpayers are being asked for 750 billion dollars,
and have already pumped about a trillion into the system, if
the problem is only, at worst, about 200 billion dollars?
Put another way, the government could outright BUY every mortgage
in foreclosure for less than one third of what's being asked for.
And it's worse, much worse. Even that $200 billion number
assumes those mortgages are worth zero. But they're not
worth zero, there are houses behind those mortgages. They're
easily worth half. That is, buy a $200,000 mortgage on a home,
sell the house, how many houses with $200,000 mortgages won't
fetch even $100,000? Not many.
So the figure to buy out every mortgage in foreclosure isn't
even $200B, it's probably half that, $100B. Say there's that
many again in trouble and going into foreclosure over the
next few months. Still only $200B. Why not just buy them or
buy out the mortgages and work out whatever can be worked
out with the family being foreclosed on.
Here's a typical
workout in a bad situation: You pay what you CAN pay for
the next 12 months and then we'll review it again. No
moral hazard, the interest keeps piling on if you pay less
than originally expected, but you don't get thrown out of
the house, no ugly foreclosure or legal costs or homeless
families or empty houses dragging down the rest of the
neighborhood, and we (the government) get some payments as
you try to get into better financial shape or maybe the
housing market recovers enough for you to sell the house and
close out the mortgage,
whatever. Or maybe it
never gets better, so what? Still A LOT less than $750 billion.
So what's the explanation? Let's start easy:
It's not the mortgages, It's Not The Mortgages,
[1] Wikipedia entry on the Subprime Mortgage Crisis
The $700B bailout vote in the senate is on an amendment attached
to HR1424 which is the Mental Health Parity Bill, a bill which
requires employers to provide health insurance which recognizes
mental illness like any other illness.
Why is the senate doing this? Because spending bills must begin
in the house of representatives, not the senate. Since the
house of representatives failed to pass the bailout bill on Monday
this is the senate's turn, and they're using what amounts to
a loophole to get into the driver's seat.
There's something poetic about putting this $700 billion bailout
on a mental illness bill.
Republican president Bush, along with his treasury secretary
Henry Paulson, pleaded for passage of the bail out bill.
John McCain who supposedly represents some sort of change in
leadership of the republican party flew back to Washington,
suspending his campaign, to lobby house republicans in favor
of the bailout bill.
Representative John Boehner, republican house minority leader,
urged the republican caucus he suppsedly leads to vote for the
bill. Boehner even assured the cameras that they would vote for
the bill.
Those house republicans voted no on the bill 2:1. Two thirds
of house republicans voted against the bailout bill. Despite
Bush's pleading. Despite Boehner's pleadings. Despite whatever
it was that McCain did.
This doesn't preclude the possibility that maybe the bailout bill
was bad and should have been voted against.
But at this point it's clear that what we have in the republican
party is anarchy.
If 2/3 of the republican house representatives
were opposed to this bill it should have never gone to the floor
when it did. Why did both McCain and Boehner and to some extent
Bush seem so confident this bill would pass, and then 2/3 of
their own congressmen and women voted against them?
Put another way, what did those 2/3 want, exactly? Did they
want nothing to be done? Did they want certain specific
changes in the bill? Did they even have a common view of what they wanted?
The best an embarrassed Boehner could say for himself was that
it was somehow Speaker Pelosi's fault, that she made a remark
just before the voting which offended republican reps into
presumably changing their votes to against the bailout bill.
That seems ridiculous and implausible. This was their president's
bill, George Bush's bill, it was the democrats who were going
along with it and trying to play in a non-partisan, what's
good for the country, way.
What the democrats should do is use a parliamentary system
approach and form a
Coalition of the Sane
made up of probably
mostly democrats but as many republicans as shame and sanity
can muster and just marginalize the rest. If they can pull
together two-thirds sane people in the senate and house
(slim chance, we know) they can even over-ride presidential vetos.
But maybe at this point, with the republicans in revolt against
the lame duck Bush, perhaps Bush would see the light, face
the music, smell the coffee....Nahhhhh.
Is anybody in charge here?
Why did this bailout bill go to the floor if the republicans
couldn't even deliver more than 1/3 of their votes?
Then, as if to try to convert tragedy into dark humor, house republican
leader John Boehner tried to blame their failure on some remarks Nancy Pelosi
made just prior to the voting.
As representative Barney Frank immediately responded: So
because they thought their feelings were hurt by one individual
they decided to punish the entire country? Frank then offered
to go to each of the republicans (apparently, 12) who felt this
way and say very nice things to each of them if they would just promise to
change their vote.
Interestingly, it was 12 republicans who got together to
protest Speaker Pelosi's remarks, and the measure failed
by 12 republican votes. Coincidence? You be the judge!
Note: The democrats could have passed the bill without those
republicans' help but as was said by house leaders it was very
important to them that both democrats and republicans pass the
bill both to show bipartisan support and to prevent finger-pointing
later, particularly in upcoming election campaigns.
People often speculate that McCain has tied his hopes for
the Iraq war to his own personal frustration that the US pulled out of Vietnam
"before finishing the job". He even said as much during the debate,
that he won't oversee "another Vietnam" (pullout.)
Obama, therefore, hanged John McCain with his own rope.
Here's the
URL of that video
if you need to send it to your friends:
In early October, with less than four weeks to go, Jack Kemp returned
to his home town of Buffalo, NY and mostly just gave up on the campaign. This
was shortly after his sound defeat to Vice President Al Gore in the
October 9th, 1996 vice-presidential debate.
Kemp refused to comment but clearly was nowhere to be seen which
proved an embarrasment for Dole. The press wasn't surprised because
Dole/Kemp was trailing badly in the polls and ultimately lost the
election in a landslide (379 to 159 electoral votes, 47M vs 39M
popular votes.)
One story was that the Republican party, seeing how badly Dole/Kemp
was doing in the polls, pulled as much budget as they could, why
throw good money after bad?
Is this being repeated with McCain/Palin? Has the Republican Party
decided that given the mood of the country and the reasonable
anger of the voters at republicans that spending on the McCain/Palin
is a waste and has re-shifted the money to focus on more winnable races in
congress and gubernatorial contests?
That would explain John McCain's suspension of his campaign and
rush back to Washington better than his stated reason that
all his attention was
needed to focus on the "economic crisis".
As Barack Obama has repeatedly pointed out if McCain were ever to
become president he'd have to multi-task, why not just let
Sarah Palin continue campaigning while he spent a few days
in Washington? We still have about 40 days to go.
Let's face it, we are witnessing the total collapse of the republican
party and the republican ideology.
It had its opportunity. From
2001-2006 they controlled the entire congress, since 2001 they
have controlled the white house, and by and large control the
Supreme Court.
The republicans got free reign to implement their ideology
and it has failed.
Now polls are reporting one after another that voters are voicing
strongly anti-republican sentiments two to one, three to one, worse.
The American voters have figured it out: The Republican have failed
by their own hand.
And now John McCain is at the receiving end of the voters' wrath.
It's no wonder that he's apparently conceding the election.
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb McCain...
What it's about are the "derivatives". Without getting too
technical they're bets, wagering, in a Wall Street way. Sort
of like insurance is a form of wagering, you bet the insurance
company that your house won't (or will) burn down.
What these financial institutions were doing was taking batches of
mortgages and buying and selling bets on whether they would be
These bets are not backed by those mortgages any more than if
you bet on a horse you get the horse.
Think of gambling at the horse track. Let's say you own a horse
in the next race. It cost you $100,000 to get that horse into
the race and you would get a $250,000 purse if it wins. But
what if it loses? Your $100,000 is gone.
So you bet on the second best horse, say it's paying 4 to 1, so you
bet $25,000, you'd get $100,000 if it wins.
Now, if your horse wins you get $250,000, less the
$100,000 entry fees, and less the $25,000 you bet on the
other horse which lost. But that's ok, you'd still be ahead $125,000.
What if the other horse comes in? You would get $100,000 (4 to 1 on
$25,000) which
would pay your $100,000 entry fee, you'd break even, which is
better than being out your $100,000 entry fee.
Let's keep it simple and imagine this is a two-horse race.
Then it wouldn't matter which horse won. You'd be out the $100,000
entry fee and the $25,000 bet on the other horse. Even if your horse
won you wouldn't get the $250,000 purse,
and if the other horse won you wouldn't get that $100,000 either.
In essence this is what happened. These financial institutions bet
TRILLIONS of dollars that you would AND that you wouldn't pay your
mortage. Perhaps more one way or the other depending on how good they
thought your ability to pay was.
Want your head to spin? Then THEY SOLD THOSE BETS to others! There
was not only a market in betting, there was a market in re-selling
the bets! And betting on the bets. This is how it got to trillions.
So, the mortgages are down there somewhere, just like the horses
would be somehow involved in the horse track scenario, but the
problem is that the betting can be worth far more than the horses
(or mortgages.)
And what does the government want to do? What do they want another
$700 billion for?
Basically, to pay off the bad bets, to buy them out, and get the
horse track open again, so everybody who lost on those bets can
try to win their money back.
Will it work? NOBODY KNOWS!
What seems crazy is that we got into this mess because the republican
president, along with the 2001-2006 republican congress borrowed too
much, $3 TRILLION dollars in new debt.
And now they're trying to borrow their way out of the mess!
It's like trying to pay off one credit card with another credit card.
Worse! It's YOUR credit card!
Then Bush hires Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, the
premier Wall Street firm, and suddenly we're running up the
taxpayers' credit cards to put TRILLIONS into Wall Street.
Astounding coincidences.
As we type this treasury secretary Henry Paulson, fed chairman Ben
Bernanke, and SEC Chair Christopher Cox are being grilled by
the Senate Banking Committee.
One senator asks if this $700 billion bailout money is only intended
to go to regulated banks etc.?
Paulson says yes, that is the
So the senator then asks if they could put that wording into any
senate approval for the $700 billion?
Paulson gets flustered and
reaffirms that is the intent, that the money only go to federally regulated
companies, but he doesn't think it should be in
the wording (why not? He needs "maximum flexibility").
Senator Schumer then asks why do they need the $700B all at once?
Why not approve $150B now and then reconvene January 15th for
example, assess how it's going, and if merited approve some more
money. Does Paulson really expect to spend the whole $700B before
January 15th?
Paulson clearly doesn't like that...have to restore confidence in
Wall Street...need maximum flexibility...time is of the essence...just
the usual noises
but never quite answers the question.
Hang onto your wallets. This $700B represents approximately
$7,000 new federal debt for every family in America. The
total $5 trillion in new debt under the Bush administration
represents $50,000 per family. Still happy about that tax
cut, the $600 they sent you back?
You don't think that's your problem? How's your home value doing? How
do you like gas and energy and food prices? How do you think they
got that way? The first $3 trillion in new debt the republican
congress and president ran up 2001-2006 which has sharply
devalued the US dollar.
Now the Bush administration is arguing that the way out of the mess
is to run up another trillion or two in new debt.
The democratic senators are trying their best to figure out how
to put some controls on this $700B before approving it. And
Paulson is twisting and turning for every nickel, unfettered. I
wonder why?
Republicans have been trying to place the blame for this
current economic disaster on democrats. Their usual
argument is that democrats pushed for affordable mortgages
for working people and that somehow (how is not clear)
pressured Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac into unwise lending
Last year Lehman Brothers, a large Wall Street investment bank,
handed out two and a half billion dollars in bonuses to their
top staff. Last week Lehman declared bankruptcy and is a likely
recipient of billions in government bailout funds.
But we're supposed to believe the problem lies with average working
people who were trying to put a roof over their family's head? That's
What caused the meltdown was the republican congress (2001-2006) and
the republican president (Bush, 2001-now) added three trillion dollars
in new debt onto the federal government.
Funding that debt (selling bonds) necessitated raising interest rates.
Quickly rising interest rates made the initially more affordable
adjustable-rate mortgages unaffordable. Monthly mortgage payments
doubled. Add to that rising gas prices and young working familes
became strapped.
This also caught mortgage lenders off-guard, money had been loaned
out at low interest rates but when those rates began to rise
rapidly they didn't have time to adjust to the new situation. To
make matters worse the rising interest rates needed to fund
all that republican debt caused a business slowdown putting
further pressure on businesses.
In turn, the business slowdown has resulted in a sharp increase
in unemployment. Naturally when unemployment rises there are going
to be more mortgage defaults. When there are too many, more than
banks anticipated, banks begin to suffer, not to mention the
unemployed. This is particularly
true when the pool of mortgages they wrote were for much lower
interest rates than now available.
So once again the republicans try to blame the famine on the starving.
It's unbelievable, and apparently the American voters agree!
The republican congress (2001-2006) and republican president (Bush,
2001-present) ran up an historic amount of debt, over 3 trillion dollars.
To finance that debt they had to sell bonds. To sell that many bonds
they had to creep up interest rates to make them more attractive.
Besides raising interest rates they competed with business for
credit, slowing down the economy. Why loan a billion to some risky business
when you can loan it to the government who has never failed to pay
back loans?
Cranking up interest rates to sell US government bonds to finance this massive
amount of new debt which the republicans created sank the housing
market, and that, along with the slowing economy,
began a domino effect taking down credit institutions who
were holding too much of this now worthless debt, or now
almost worthless freddie mac and fannie mae paper, etc. This
led to a panic, no big institution thought the other creditworthy,
business deals and financing ground to a halt, and now
the government is stepping in.
It's true that the democrats have been in the majority in congress
since January 2007 but their majority is very slim, certainly
not enough to challenge or override the president, and if it's
true that this mess has been caused by the 3 trillion dollars
in debt run up by the president and republican congress there
really hasn't been time to dig out as the consequences came
to fruition only months after capturing that slim margin.
we have now is a stalemated congress trying to undo and repair in
a few months the
damage caused over several years by a united congress and
So now the proposal is, after spending nearly half a trillion
dollars they don't have so far this year,
the government, specifically president
Bush and secretary of treasury Hank Paulson, are urging congress
to make available (to the department of treasury to dispense as
it sees fit) another $700 billion. Paulson has now advised congress
that the situation is not only urgent, it is dire, the entire
economy can collapse "in a matter of days" if his proposal isn't
There's an old saying in managment: If you want a FAST answer that's
easy: NO!
Assuming this plan goes through we're now up to about 1.5 trillion
dollars in new debt just this year, maybe closer to 2 trillion dollars,
we're rapidly speeding towards doubling the amount of debt which
got us into this mess.
But if it was deficit spending which got us into this mess then
isn't it reasonable to be worried about using deficit spending to
try to get us out? For example, if injecting all this borrowed
money into the system causes runaway inflation that will sink the
value of outstanding mortgages and consumer debt (car loans,
credit cards, etc.) causing more pressure on the very banks we're
trying to save.
Isn't it worrisome that the history of this era might be that
the republicans got the economy into trouble borrowing too much money, and
like idiots tried to get out of trouble by just borrowing more?
Now ya listen up ya scalliwags!
The Pirate Party don't have no platform a'cause
we don't likes the word. When one of ours stands on a platform
it's usually got a trap door and there's a rope around his neck.
Shivers me timbers to think about it. The only planks we got are the
ones ya gonna walk if you don't vote Pirate!
Now, we offers ya two sets of candidates because the
body count tryin' to settle on one was gettin' too
high even for our tastes. Arrgh! The contest coulda made
a dead man's rotting flesh crawl!
First off there's Black Bart from the middle seas and far eastern
shores. He talks
smooth as pearls fallin' out of a silken purse and can
stick a knife in ya back and ye'll thank him for it! Now listen
up! He's makin' a
plan for this country which'll take the gold from them what's
has it so the rest of ya lubbers can party like it's 1999! And
free grog for all sez Black Bart, a gentleman like none other.
Black Bart's runnin' mate is Smilin' Joe, an older fella
known to many as The Terror of Rehoboth! Them what's
alive to tell the tale anyhow. Some of you are still
spittin' bilge water cuz Black Bart scorned Sister Pantslegs
for Smilin' Joe. Well, eats yer bone soup and shuts yer
bung hole, what's done is done and Black Bart sez naysayers
can just kiss his shiny cutlass!
The boss of the other ticket is tough Papa Johnny, and a tougher
old salt ye'll never meet. Ya don't
mess with Old Papa Johnny, others have tried. They tied him down and
broke his bones and he laughed in their faces for five years
until his mates broke him out. Now he's back with just a few
marbles shook loose that he keeps in his pocket for good luck.
Now pay attention, his plan is to settle some scores...old, new, and some he
hasn't even dreamt up yet. Keep yer weather eye peeled for this
buccaneer or sorry ye'll be! Johnny has one sure way to do in his
enemies...he outlives 'em! AH-HAHHAH-HAR-HAR!
Papa Johnny's been goin' 'round with the Ice Queen, one
scary wench if ever there was one. One
winter she birth'd herself a baby then gutted a moose to keep the tad warm
inside its bloody entrails. And watch out for her lipstick, it can
dazzle a roomful of hardened journalists 'til they all starts talkin'
gibberish at once! A humblin' sight.
The Ice Queen don't come into town often so when she does ya'd
do best to hide yer airs and say yer prayers!
Whichever ways ye vote something ye can be sure about,
my hearties. Yer gonna get robbed, yer gonna get plundered,
and yer gonna shout "Aye Aye!" and smile when we do it!
Cuz there's only one reason to Vote Pirate and that's our health
plan for ya, if ya gets my driftwood.
Cox's office eliminated the
uptick rule
on July 6th, 2007.
rule had been in effect since 1938 and was a reaction to stock
market abuses during the Great Depression.
It's a little subtle,
but in a nutshell this rule required that someone closing out a short position,
a bet that a company's stock will go down, must close it out
with stock which is rising, not falling, to prevent professional
short-traders from driving a stock down into free fall.
Cox thought this was an annoying and petty regulation so removed it.
Since that day the markets have fallen over 20% and are in turmoil.
Of course, this current turmoil may be totally unrelated to the elimination
of the uptick rule, no one is certain. Right now more attention is being
paid to
naked short-selling.
there is a growing sentiment that whatever Chris Cox is doing it
must be wrong; the lunatics are running the asylum.
So who is Christopher Cox? What qualified him for this powerful
job as head of regulating the US stock markets?
Cox's predecessor as SEC chair,
Bill Donaldson,
spent a lifetime in executive
management on Wall Street. Bill Donaldson's name was well
known by his peers because, among other things, his investment bank, Donaldson,
Lufkin & Jenrette Securities, was highly respected.
Chris Cox was a republican congressman from Orange County, California,
where Disneyland is located. He spent most of his 17 years in congress
as Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. He resigned
his seat in August, 2005 to become chairman of the SEC, a Bush appointment.
Cox also once won $5,000
on the TV game show "Password Plus!" back in the 1980s.
But you might remember Chris Cox from the Clinton administration
when he headed a committee along with congressman Dan Burton which
investigated allegations that Bill Clinton traded sensitive
military hardware with China in exchange for campaign contributions.
It was all part of the Clinton impeachment show trial, the
republicans cooked up allegation
after allegation ranging from claims Clinton had a role in his
white house attorney Vince Foster's suicide to bits and pieces
like this Cox-Burton "Chinagate" investigative committee.
Nothing ever came of
any of it. All the republican wolf pack was ever able to charge
Bill Clinton with was lying about a consensual blow job, and even that silly
charge didn't stick.
So, what were Chris Cox's qualifications to be SEC chairman?
He was a loyal, loyal, republican. A real team player.
Now John McCain has called for
Chris Cox to be fired.
But White House spokesperson Dana Perino
was asked this morning
if Chris Cox still had Bush's backing and she replied "Yes".
You're doing a great job Chrissie!, echoing Bush's
support of Mike Brown, Bush's appointed head of FEMA, during the
Katrina hurricane disaster.
Mike Brown was also well-qualified for
that disaster-response management job president Bush appointed him
to, he used to breed Arabian horses (DOH!)
Yer doin' a great job, Georgie!
"The [Bush administration] has now set a pattern of ad hoc
responses to [these financial crises]."
Doesn't that sum it up? Bear-Stearns, Lehman, AIG, each is treated
like a total surprise, much like the planes smashing into the
World Trade Towers or hurricane Katrina.
But these can't be total surprises. These are publicly traded
companies. That means they are required by law to report their
finances routinely, every 90 days at least, transparently and
Something is amiss. Keep listening to Congressman Frank, he'll
get to the bottom of this.
"one of the smartest men in congress...a social
liberal with a market orientation"
Floyd Stoner,
director for congressional relations at the American
Bankers Association"
Your state is extremely well presented in the United States Senate, and your
congressional district has the smartest, funniest, most effective member of
Congress I know of anywhere in the United States Barney Frank.
Vice President Al Gore
"Barney Frank: He's the smartest guy in Congress.
Bill Maher
"Always the answer to ``Who's the smartest guy in congress?'' That's
my answer, Barney Frank"
Bill Maher
"Barney, I think, is in many ways unique in that he really grasps" the forces
behind the housing crisis and its reverberations in global markets, Paulson
said. "I thought it was remarkable when I came down here to find someone who
had not been in the private sector and the capital markets who understood the
capital markets as well as Barney Frank did."
Comments of Secretary Paulson, May 5,
2008 Washington Post, "On Economy, Unlikely Allies Forge Winning Strategy,"
We talk about oil prices in united states dollars, not british
pounds or euros or yen. Why? Because international trading of
oil is done in united states dollars.
But dollars also happen
to be what we in America like to think in. If I told you that
a few weeks ago a liter of gasoline in Paris was 1.53 euros
you'd need a few minutes to work out what that means. If I
told you that's about $8.46 per gallon (at the euro/dollar rate in June)
it'd save you a lot of time
unless you do those conversions frequently.
Now, what happens if the dollar goes down in value?
Oil, and other products we buy at international prices, would go
up in price. If the dollar is less valuable a dollar buys less oil, so
oil appears more expensive, and gas made from that oil goes up in price
If the dollar goes up in value? Oil will go down in price.
Very simple. Dollar up, oil down, dollar down, oil up.
But if oil changes price how can we tell if it's the oil going
up in value, perhaps due to more demand or less supply, or the dollar's value
You can convert the oil price to other currencies, or whatever you
like, plot it against the price of rice in China as the expression
But what makes sense? Euros, since the euro has been much more stable
than the dollar in the past few years, and gold, because gold has
inherent value, so much so that if gold prices go up or down it's
generally assumed that's a measure of the strength of the dollar
(or whatever currency) rather than some sudden spike in demand or
supply of gold (though it does happen.)
That's what the chart at the top of the article shows: Oil priced
in US dollars, euros, and gold from 2000 to recently.
And what do we see? We see that oil prices rise much more slowly
in euros, and rises hardly at all if priced in gold.
If the dollar tracked the euro more closely oil would be about
60% what it is now, so rather than $100/barrel it would be
$60/barrel. Gasoline would be $2.40/gallon not $4/gallon.
If the dollar tracked gold more closely then oil would be
about $35/barrel and gasoline about $1.40/gallon!
This is not entirely hypothetical. If you had bought a bunch
of gold in 2002 and you were now selling it a little at a time
to pay for gasoline you would be paying, in effect, $1.40/gallon,
less a little for whatever interest the money might have paid in
a bank and taxes on your gold "profits" (not really profits except
relative to the weak dollar.)
So, this tells us that if the dollar weakens then oil prices go
up for that reason alone, and that's largely what's happened since 2000.
The chart goes back to 2000 but this trend starts in
Why would the dollar weaken so much? About 30% or so since 2002?
There are a lot of reasons, but the primary reasons are falling
interest rates, changes in the money supply (print money and it
gets cheaper!), the federal deficit, etc.
And who controls those factors?
The Bush administration, and to some extent cooperation by congress,
in particular the republican congress we had from 2001-2006.
Class dismissed.
EIGHT years of a republican white house.
AND what have we got to show for it?
THREE trillion dollars in new federal debt and rising fast.
The housing market in a depression.
Some of the biggest brokerage houses and investment banks on
Wall Street being liquidated and requiring bail outs.
Lehman Brothers: Chapter 11 bankruptcy (we wonder if the new
bankruptcy law they and other banks lobbied for applies to them?)
Bear-Stearns: Liquidated, assets given to JP Morgan ($10/share,
recent high for Bear-Stearns? $113/share.)
Merrill-Lynch: Desparate sell-off to Bank of America. Merrill
CEO John Thain and BofA CEO Ken Lewis both asserted Monday that
takeover talks only began Saturday morning, the deal was done Sunday
night. General Motors: CEO Rick Wagoner is pleading with
congress for a $25 billion dollar bailout. AIG: stock is down
70% since Friday open (it's only Monday!), to $5.34. 52-week high for
Economic stimulus packages (send everyone back $600 of their own
tax money.) Hundreds of billions in "liquidity" (that means free
cash, folks) injected into the banking system to keep it afloat.
A sharp rise in bank failures being taken over by the FDIC.
Oil reaching $140/barrel, gasoline over $4.
And the argument is:
Yeah, kind of like:
Run this dangerously rogue republican party out of town, they were
taken over by idiots, lunatics, criminals, rabid jackals, and the purely greedy
years ago.
Don't be fooled again!
Palin tries to, put simply, bullshit her way past the fact that she
hasn't a clue what the "Bush Doctrine" is.
The Bush Doctrine is a specific statement of policy Bush made in
September 2002 that the United States has the right to strike
pre-emptively against countries if it believes it has reliable
intelligence that they are going to attack us.
Now, Sarah Palin not coming up with that wouldn't
be a fatal flaw. She could have even said something like "Help
me here Charlie, I'm drawing a blank, a little nervous I guess,
remind what the ``Bush Doctrine'' is?"
But, no, she charges right in and tries to fabricate an answer,
just begins making it all up out of whole cloth babbling on
about Islamic extremists and other buzzwords until Gibson finally
interrupts her and tells her what he's referring to. She still
doesn't seem to recognize the term which is kind of surprising.
It's not that she doesn't know what it is that's the problem.
It's that she descends into lying like a teen-ager in the principal's
office that's a problem.
Sarah Palin is an embarrassment.
There! Can we move on now???
How about this:
You can not be a "feminist", you can not
claim to be on the side of women's rights, if you oppose
abortion choice.
Period. End of argument. So just cut it out you right-wing poseurs,
grow some cajones and just say it: Women are our property and they'll
do what we tell them!
It's like claiming you're religious (in a judeo-christian-islamic sense)
while denying the existence of
god. You have every right to not believe in god, but to then call
yourself religious, to then demand that others see you as a religious
person, is just dishonest and a ploy.
Every right a person can claim has to start with a right over their
own body! If you don't have a fundamental right over your own body which
supercedes the whims of lawmakers then all other rights become
meaningless and empty.
Imagine freedom of speech, but the law could remove your tongue. What
good would the freedom be? It sounds silly, but isn't that exactly
what someone like a Sarah Palin is arguing?
Ok, how about
a world without habeas corpus? Where they can hold you
in jail as long as they want without charging you with any crime.
Hey, what's your beef? You're not accused of anything, you're just
in jail, but innocent until proven guilty! Don't you like being
innocent? Oh, right, wait a minute, that's
the world we already live in.
She certainly has every right not to have an abortion, every right,
that's the whole point of choice! But she and John McCain et al
want to make it illegal to have an abortion. They want to send
in uniformed officers with guns and sticks and the full power of force
the state grants to stop women from having abortions, deadly
force if necessary.
And that's
exactly what will happen if Palin's wishes are granted.
Women will seek abortions anyhow, illegally if necessary. So they'll
have to use guns and handcuffs and jails and prisons to stop them
and to punish them.
Now, what kind of feminism is that? It's Orwellian double-speak.
Suddenly a woman can be a "feminist" just because she's feisty and will
go into the public square demanding lower pay for women,
legalization of wife beating, and removing women's property
Does that sound like ridiculous hyperbole? Aha! Maybe now you're beginning
to "get it" why the notion of an anti-abortion choice "feminist" is an
oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
Alright, it's true that Oprah
any such decision and has claimed that Matt Drudge made it all up
or something like that.
But that won't stop us from exploiting that twinge of outrage
caused by the headline above!
Coming up:
The-Election.com refuses guest columns from
Queen Elizabeth II, Osama bin Laden, and Bigfoot!
The federal deficit is the amount the government spends beyond
its income which comes mostly as taxes.
When the republicans took office in January 2001 there was no federal
deficit, there was about a $200 billion surplus, we were ahead of the
game for the first time in decades!
Here is how it went from there under republican control:
Bush and the republicans cut taxes
while sharply increasing government spending. Everybody likes lower
taxes, but cutting taxes, the government's income,
and then increasing spending leads to the picture above, increasing
Under the republicans
the government was competing in the credit markets
with business selling that debt. The government finances those
huge deficits by selling bonds.
Much of that debt was bought by foreign countries because it pays
interest to them. The US govt pays around $250 billion a year in
interest on those bonds.
This led to the credit crunch and rising interest rates, the government
had to keep raising interest rates paid on that debt to keep it
attractive to investors and foreign governments.
That led to the housing and mortgage crisis and the US dollar falling over 1/3
in value over that period.
The falling dollar value accounts for most of the rise in oil and
gasoline prices during that period.
So, if you like high gasoline prices, if you like the value of your
home dropping by tens of thousands of dollars per year, then you
must love republicans in control of the federal budget.
Don't be fooled by republican talk of lower taxes. They gave us
lower taxes when they were in control from 2001 to 2006 and the
money just came out of your pockets at the gas pump, and from the value
of your home.
For many people their home is a large part of their
life savings. So the republicans lowered your taxes while
raiding your life savings, your home's value!
In defense some will say this was a result of 9/11.
John Boehner, republican house minority leader, loves to say this when
confronted with the above facts. He'll say it wasn't the republicans'
fault, it was Osama bin Laden's fault (sounds good, no?)
But the republicans added 3 TRILLION dollars in new debt while they
were in control.
Even the worst estimates of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan
claim we've spent about $650 billion on these wars. Where's the other
$2.3 trillion?
It went to republican pork. Plain and simple. When the republicans
were in control they spent your money like drunken sailors on
shore leave. It had nothing to do with the costs of the war or 9/11.
Even that wouldn't've been quite so painful if they hadn't
also cut taxes while increasing spending!
That's like you
saying you're going to part-time at work and you've decided to
increase your budget so you can enjoy your new free time. You'll
make up the difference with your credit cards.
That wouldn't work out too well, financially, and it didn't
when the republicans controlled the government.
The republicans cut taxes,
vastly increased spending, and the result was the debt went through
the roof!
And the result of that was higher gas prices and the housing crisis.
How much of those mortgage defaults, people losing their homes,
are caused by people who didn't anticipate gasoline nearly
doubling in price, heating and electricity going through the
roof, and before you know it they're choosing between paying
the mortgage or driving to work!
What made it worse was when the housing market collapsed many
people found that a home they had a $250,000 mortgage for was now worth
only $200,000, they owed more on the mortgage than the house was
worth, much more!
So if homeowners fell even a little bit behind on the mortage the banks
panicked, they wanted them out and those houses sold before they
went down further in price. The banks' mortgages weren't covered
by the value of the house, so the banks panicked.
This bank panic
pushed up the rate of defaults which further pushed down housing
values, no one wanted to write new mortgages so people couldn't
buy homes, prices had to be lowered to try to find buyers.
And a vicious spiral
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government's prime source
of money for mortgages, almost went bankrupt. Their stock prices fell
over 85% in value on the market because investors were sure the
whole financial system was about to collapse.
So the government was forced to pump hundreds of billions of dollars
into the financial system to keep it from collapsing.
That was your money they were handing out as welfare to banks!
So before you believe that the republicans will "lower taxes" and
bring fiscal responsibility to Washington could you do us a
little favor?
Give us a ring, we have this great bridge in
Brooklyn we need to unload...great terms! Honest!