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POPSMcCain's Chilling Dance With the Dark Side
Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to ask questions about Obama's relationship, such as it was, with Bill Ayers. Or with Tony Rezko or with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Just as it wouldn't be inappropriate to raise questions about McCain's association with G. Gordon Liddy, the convicted Watergate burglar whose colorful history includes telling listeners to his radio show in 1994 to shoot federal agents in the head. When McCain went on Liddy's radio show in November 2007, he told Liddy, "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family... It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." The candidates' associations with these people, and their responses to questions about them, give you a view into their judgment. But at a time of great economic uncertainty -- so uncertain that the smartest people in the world are scratching their heads about what to do -- whi
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POPSBush signs bill to turn military satellites on U.S. G W Bush, aka Big Brother, is inching closer to allowing Homeland Security greater access to military satellites, despite statutes that make it illegal to use the armed forces to "execute the laws" within U.S. borders. Bush continues to subvert civil protection laws in the government's obsessive quest to 'know' everything that goes on within our borders. This shows this administrations sociopathic distrust of its citizens and a continued lack of respect for its citizens privacy.
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POPSPost-bailout AIG spends $440,000 for "retreat" at a California resort Congressman Waxman also said that there was evidence that the former CEO changed the bonus schedule in order to insure that top executives would continue making multi-million dollar salaries, even as their company went broke. "Mr. Sullivan and the other top executives should have had their bonuses slashed due to poor performance," said Waxman. Sullivan received a $15 million golden parachute payment when he was let go in June, says ABC.
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POPSBernanke, Paulson, Trichet May Act to Unblock Lending (Update1)
Rates are also surging in the commercial paper market that many U.S. companies use to finance their day-to-day operations. Yields on overnight U.S. commercial paper jumped 0.94 percentage point to 3.68 percent. `The Federal Reserve must now act as a clearing house'' for banks and ``must also take another bold step: outright purchases of commercial paper, said Bill Gross, manager of the world's biggest bond fund at Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co. Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index having its steepest intraday decline since 1987 and emerging markets, until now the locomotives of the world economy, hit particularly hard: exchanges in Russia and Brazil halted trading. One less complicated step would be for central banks to lower rates in concert. Traders are betting that the Bank of England will lower rates at a meeting this week, and that the Fed will cut its benchmark by at least half a point at or before an Oct. 28-29 gathering.
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POPSA strong condemnation based on voting record "We face a perfect financial storm,” Kucinich warned. “The elements are the deficit spending for the war of 3 to 4 trillion dollars, the trillion and more tax cuts, the war itself and the lack of serious investment in the country. We are being hollowed out. We are going to see more unemployment and more people losing their homes. With $700 billion we could have made a real investment in the country, in jobs, in infrastructure and in homes. Instead, we got robbed.”
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POPSSolution to the economic crisis? Are the same things being done to get us out of this mess the same things that got us into it in the first place? Seeing the market go down hundreds of points after the bill was passed had to be a very disappointing thing to the people who voted for the bailout.
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POPS Obama and Ayers: A Radical Pentagon Bomber NYTimes Since earning a doctorate in education at Columbia in 1987, Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform. Steve Chapman, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune, defended Mr. Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his longtime pastor, whose black liberation theology and “God damn America” sermon became notorious last spring. But he denounced Mr. Obama for associating with Mr. Ayers, whom he said the University of Illinois should never have hired. “I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings,” Mr. Chapman said in an interview. The Schools Project The Ayers-Obama connection first came to public attention last spring, when both Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama’s Democratic primary rival, and Mr. McCain brought it up. the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge at the University of Illinois were opened to rese
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POPSBailout Bill Loops In Green Tech, IRS Snooping • One-year extension for wind and refined coal energy tax credits. A production credit for electricity produced from renewable marine energy sources Energy credits for "small wind properties," geothermal heat pump systems, and energy-efficient residential properties. • New renewable-energy bonds. Up to $800 billion in energy bonds may be offered to the public... • Tax credits for "cellulosic biofuels" and for "carbon dioxide sequestration." An extension of an alternative fuel credit. Tax credits for "new qualified plug-in electric-drive motor vehicles." Bicycle commuters get a nod,... The bailout bill also gives the Internal Revenue Service new authority to conduct undercover operations. It would immunize the IRS... federal laws, including permitting IRS agents to run businesses for an extended sting operation.. Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1988, the IRS has possessed this authority temporarily, with occasional multiple-year lapses...such undercover authority would be made perma
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POPSCommentary from a Central Banker "And what better way to ensure the corporate largesse is returned to the GOP to win back the White House and Congress in 2012 as the depression fuels public anger?"
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POPS"I'm Barack Obama, and I Approve This Bailout" Both left and right on Main St. oppose the bailout bill, and for good reason. Take a look here at how mad many on the left are. Here is his punch line to the get-a-long Democrats in Congress--call it a hard left hook: To the former, the Democratic Party, I say: your support of this Bill as it stands or in any form that simply hands over money and asks the market to take care of the mess makes you our enemies, not our advocates. ...then he lands one squarely on Obama's jaw: To Barack Obama I say: you are a fraud on public credulity. You are no more a "change" agent than I am the Pope. With your support of this bailout, you have acted in direct contradiction to your promise of change Last chance to call your house rep before they RUIN both the market and the economy with those latest Bailout bill.
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POPSWhatWouldMcCain's2005 Mortg.Bill Have Done? McCain managed to predict the entire collapse that has forced the government to eat Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with Bear Stearns and AIG. He hammers the falsification of financial records to benefit executives, including Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, both of whom have worked as advisers to Barack Obama this year. McCain also noted the power of their lobbying efforts to forestall oversight over their business practices. He finishes with the warning that proved all too prescient over the past few days and weeks.
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POPSSenate Clears $1.5 Billion for Washington Metro Good news for Washington residents or anyone visiting. As detailed by the Washington Post here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092201144.html, Metro's needs are considerable and include "replacing one-third of its rail fleet, about 300 rail cars that are more than 30 years old and nearing the end of their life cycle; replacing about 100 buses every year; repairing leaky tunnels and crumbling station platforms; and repairing bus garages, one of which is more than 100 years old."
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POPSSenate Passes Pork-Stuffed Bailout Bill Oink, Oink! Your Senate at work, stuffing ear-marks into the "must pass" financial bailout bill. They all lined up. This by itself should make it very tempting to reject by republicans. Yet the hypocrite McCain, as well as Obama, supports it, (and Bush would sign it), even though it will NOT FIX THE PROBLEM, BUT EXACERBATE IT (according to economists who know), and put all Americans and the federal government on the hook for the about a TRillion Dollars in new debt, transferring bad debt from Wall Street to Main Street. Even more sickening about all this is that both McCain and Obama support this balderdash. It favors Obama as he wants more government spending and government control. This however flies in the face of what McCain has been saying that he will veto earmarks and pork barrel spending. THE HOUSE SHOULD REJECT THIS. CALL THEM!
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POPSCongress OKs Bill to Improve Broadband Access Such an analysis might provide some insight as to why the U.S. -- the birthplace of the Internet -- lags behind other developed countries in broadband usage. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks the U.S. 15th for broadband penetration. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who sponsored a similar bill that passed the House earlier this year, supported the legislation. "This initiative will help us ascertain whether the nation is achieving its broadband policy goals because, unfortunately, our current knowledge on the state of broadband deployment, speed and affordability in the U.S. is grossly and inexcusably lacking," Markey said.
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POPS After Bailout, Economy Will Still Be Lousy You'll simply be spared some sort of wipe out. Meanwhile, the economy is likely to continue its down drift, with all the hallmarks of a recession. If strained consumers expecting some kind of immediate relief grow cynical when it doesn't arrive, it could even deepen a downturn as consumer confidence quakes once again. So, do the economy a favor, and curtail your expectations. Here's what the bailout will and won't do, in the areas that matter most to consumers: Housing. Homeowners at risk of foreclosure won't enjoy much of a bailout at all. The plan calls for the government to "encourage" banks to help out borrowers who are in arrears by writing off some of the loan amount or negotiating more agreeable terms. But voluntary programs to help stressed homeowners have been marginally effective at best. The ultimate financial fix would be a fast-forward button that rushed us to the end of the housing bust, which underlies the entire meltdown. But that's beyond the government
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POPS Inside Obama’s Acorn ....with a “1960’s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism” to match. Acorn, says Stern, grew out of “one of the New Left’s silliest and most destructive groups, the National Welfare Rights Organization.” The theory, explains Stern, was that an impossibly overburdened welfare system would force “a radical reconstruction of America’s unjust capitalist economy.” Instead of a socialist utopia, however, we got the culture of dependency and family breakdown that ate away at America’s inner cities — until welfare reform began to turn the tide. he targets and strategy have changed. Acorn prefers to fly under the national radar, organizing locally in liberal urban areas — where, local legislators and reporters are often “slow to grasp how radical Acorn’s positions really are.” In Your Face Just think of Code Pink’s well-known operations (threatening to occupy congressional offices, interrupting the testimony of General David Petraeus) and you’ll get the idea.
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POPS Bailout Vote Fails In the House Yes, Clinton's surpluses gave way to Bush deficits (due largely, it's worth noting, to the 2001 recession that was in place when Clinton left office). And yes, the Bush administration (and a complacent GOP Congressional majority) presided over a lamentable and inexcusable bloating of the federal government. But the idea that this was a significant contributing factor to the mortgage/credit crisis strains the limits of creative causality. Even so, Pelosi's partisan rant - ill-timed, illogical, and irrelevant as it was - doesn't seem like a particularly good reason for intended Yeas to tank the bill. Update: A full transcript of Pelosi's speech (which was significantly longer than the clip in the video) is available in the extended entry.
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POPSThen Let Them Pay Taxes If ministers want to use their non-partisan churches to preach partisan politics, then let them get a tax bill and explain to their parishioners why it needs to be paid. It's not as if the US budget couldn't use the extra revenue.
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POPSConcensus Reached, Will Make Final Announcement Tomorrow According to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the plan proposed by Mr. Paulson, which would see the federal government buy up to $700 billion in toxic mortgage-linked assets, will form the core of any solution. Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), one of the lawmakers taking part in the talks to thrash out an agreement, said Saturday morning that the negotiators would stay in the meeting until an agreement is reached. "The basic understanding is once we get into that room we are going to stay there until we have an agreement," he said.
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POPSCEO pay: What those involved in the financial meltdown made
Amazing. "If George W. Bush, John McCain, or Barack Obama had any honesty and integrity, they would approach the current banking malady in much the same way that President Andrew Jackson did. In discussing the Bank Renewal bill with a delegation of bankers in 1832, Jackson said, "Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out."" ~ Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party Presidential Candidate.
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POPSPaying For Your Own Rape . . . Again "That’s why when Senator Joseph Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, drafted the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, he included provisions to make states ineligible for federal grant money if they charged rape victims for exams and the kits containing the medical supplies needed to conduct them. (Senator John McCain, Ms. Palin’s running mate, voted against Mr. Biden’s initiative, and his name has not been among the long list of co-sponsors each time the act has been renewed.)"
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POPSMcCain's Playing at "Leadership?" John Mcain is either (a) playing politics and setting himself up to be a hero by screwing around with the US financial system or (b) just a poor leader unable to rein in his own party and provide positive input.
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POPSWashington Mutual Succumbs It's the largest bank failure in US history. Will this bank failure provide the impetus for Congress to overcome its impasse over the bailout package? Or will Congress keep a cool head and not settle for a trillion dollar hasty plan?
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POPSThe Sweeping Powers of FEMA--not just for Hurricanes * EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports. * EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media. * EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. * EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways. * EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms. * EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
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POPSNo Statutory Protection for Bloggers (cont.)The will of Congress was to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act to exclude Internet communications from the Act's definition of "public communication." The bill is commonly regarded as the "blogger protection" bill since it addresses concerns that bloggers who regularly engage in mass public communications will become subject to federal campaign finance regulations—- especially if they reference a federal candidate 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election. Of course, all restrictions on speech content offend the Constitution, but protecting bloggers will be a good first step. In the wake of the Congressional debate two years ago, and the ensuing outrage online, the FEC moved to enact rules the give bloggers the protections envisioned in the Blogger Protection Act. But FEC rules are a ffar cry from legislative protection for the internet.
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