Political Punch

I find it odd how the media has blamed the Republicans for not passing the bill yet 95 Democrats voted against it. If only 20% of those Democrats would have voted for the bill it would have passed. And futhermore, why should we the taxpayers, the little guy trying to make it have to pay for those who speculated and lost. Only in America can you loss money and expect to be bailed out. Had the marked kept going thses fat cats would have found loop holes to avoid paying taxes.

All the financial mess points to Freddie and Fannie. The evidence is clear as day as who the culprits were and intent. Using loans to those that couldn't afford them for profit and political power. There were warnings (from Bush), hearings and regulation offered. But Democrats opposed any more regulation and claimed nothing was wrong. Both Chris Dodd and Barney Frank need to resign period.

Temagami:

next you'll tell me that McCain has been crusading for more regulation all his political career....

the real problem is that the same security that the government gives banks was extended to other financial institutions who didn't have to deal with the tighter regulations and oversight that banks do.. they were free to do just about anything, and they did, without supervision or accountability, they knew that no matter what happened the government would bail them out.

Mission Accomplished

Rex

What I am saying is that Obama had a chance to help straighten out Fannie May and Freddie Mac in 2005, but preferred to stand aloof!! No, we have a problem, but since Obama got $126,000 from Fannie and Freddie..... HOW MUCH CAN HE HELP?? HOW MUCH DID MCCAIN GET?? NADA, ZERO, ZELCH, NONE!! Obama is worth about as much as ti_s on a frog!!

One question: if this bill was so good on its own merits why do the Dems claim to want Repub support? Dems have the MAJORITY in the House. Why not get every Dem to vote for it and if it failed b/c of Repubs then they could use it against them before the election? Answer: Dems are scared to death to be the party to pass this bill on their own. The fact that certain Dems in tough re-election races were told they could vote no is one indicator. The other is that the Congressional black hispanic caucuses all voted NO. 12 members of Barney Frank's committee voted NO. Plus during the vote, there was a congressman who went on NPR radio and said that the plan was to get Repubs to pass the bill and then use it against them prior to the election. Wow, what political courage. These are the men and women we have representing us. I say throw out all the incumbents and elect new leaders far far far away from Washington DC.

Rex.

You missed it. By Thurs. Revised bill should be OK'd by House with revised provisions that MOST can live with. Obama screwed up in Senate in 2005 when he had a chance to support revisions to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac..... but he had just received $126,0000 in contributions from both Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac. A little tough to be impartial!!

The perception has been set. The world awaits a promised bailout. Are American taxpayers more knowledgeable than the White House, McCain and Obama?

Or are they suddenly just less susceptible to bad PR?

It sure looks like it.

Manitu:

so... what your saying is that certain Republicans had their feelings hurt and because of that they voted no and help initiate an almost 800 point decline in the stock market and still refused to address the financial crisis in any manner.

well..... that's certainly putting 'country first'

Mission Accomplished

After Pelosi's trashing of the Republicans just before the vote - WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?? THIS WOMAN HAS NO RIGHT TO BE ANYWHERE NEAR WASHINGTON!! Any REP on the fence BEFORE HER RANTING CERTAINLY MUST HAVE BEEN TURNED OFF AND VOTED NO.

"The American Homeowership & Economic Opportunity Act that was passed by President Clinton in late December of 2000"

This was signed by President Clinton.

It was passed by a Republican controlled Congress overwhelmingly with huge support from both parties.

If you go back in time and look at the The American Homeowership & Economic Opportunity Act that was passed by President Clinton in late December of 2000. This was the first step in what became a huge price tag for housing loans that people got and could not afford.

They are not sure this will work, and so we need to proceed with caution.
I think we need to bring in the experts (not the Congress).
Let's bring in the best Economist that we have out there---30- 50 of them and let's them give us a recommendation! (I'm sure we will need equal representation of Democrats/ Repulicans...since we are so political) Anyway I'd be more inclined believe them.

What did he mean by that? That this won't be the last of the American Tax Money that we give away?? That is scary!

TAX PAYERS are not confident that Congress and their "leadership" knows what to do on this, and since Bush's financial advisers didn't see this coming, why would we think they know what to do???
So it goes back to Trust, and I do not believe for one minute that they really know what to do.

If they did they would not be running around acting like the sky is falling. All the Democratic leadership is worried about is that it comes off as Bush's fault!

We can not bail out everyone. These businesses made terrible business decisions and it is too late to fix that. Who are we going to trust to handle this big bucket of money?? The businesses that mishandled their companies??

No way, I say wait until we get the new president in there.
Even if I lose all of my 401k, that is better than saddling my children and grandchildren with this mess. I do not believe the sky is falling!
This did not happen overnight, and does not require us to react irresponsibly by overreacting and having a knee jerk reaction to this crisis.

OBAMA: For the rest of today and as long as it takes, I'll continue to reach out to leaders in both parties and do whatever I can to help secure the plan. This morning I talked to President Bush, I talked to Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader -- (cheers and applause), oh, yeah. I forgot, he happens to come from Nevada. To the Democrats and Republicans who opposed this plan yesterday, I say, "Step up to the plate; do what's right for this country." And to all Americans, I say this. If and when I am president of the United States, this rescue plan will not be the end of what we do

Can someone ask Obama why he did not rally together the Black Congressional Caucus. What happened with that?

Let's talk judgement.

Here's McCain in 1998

MOTHER JONES: You not only have had combat experience in Vietnam, but you were also a prisoner of war. When you look at terrorism right now, with people like Osama bin Laden, do you have any reservations about watching strikes like that?

JOHN MCCAIN: You could say, Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that's depicted? Most of us have never heard of him before. And where there is a parallel with Vietnam is: What's plan B? What do we do next? We sent our troops into Vietnam to protect the bases. Lyndon Johnson said, Only to protect the bases. Next thing you know.... Well, we've declared to the terrorists that we're going to strike them wherever they live. That's fine. But what's next? That's where there might be some comparison.

"I uh.... uh... .. duh... have a bracelet too... duh ... uh ... durrr.... uh... Sergeant ... *looks down* ... uhhh... duhhhh... *reads bracelet* from Sergeant ... duhhh ... uhhh ... *reads bracelet again* .... uh duh ... Mother of Sergeant... NEENER NEENER LOOKIE ME GOT BRACELET TOO!"

LOL. Maybe he thought there was a mini-teleprompter screen on his wrist.

"Furthermore, this rescue plan isn't even close to socialism. We are buying debt to sell at a later time. We did it during the Great Depression and during the S&L scandal. We buy the stuff, restructure it, wait a while and then sell it."

Not exactly. We're being asked to buy bad mortgages, mortgages on forclosed properties with unknown value, so in a way we're buying "debt".

More precisely we're being asked to buy $700B worth of bad investsments that no one in the open market wants to touch. They are assets without a marker. Will they increase in value someday? Who knows? All we know for sure is no one wants to touch them at bargain basement prices right now. This situation has some similarities to the S&L bailout but the magnitude is about 1000 times greater.

There's government regulation, which of course is required, and there's government interference with the laws of supply and demand, the consequence of risk and reward and the absolvence of accountability. Here we have the latter.

C'mon marylou let's hear some more venom for a Gold Star Mother.

I know your well of it is bottomless.

BTW marylou, the reason Tracey Jopek emailed the campaign and asked them to stop mentioning his name originally is because right wing nutjobs on the internet were attacking her viciously.

Brian Jopek: Because of some of the negative feedback she’s gotten on the Internet, you know Internet blogs, you know people accusing her of… or accusing Obama of trying to get votes doing it… and that sort of thing.

Such a proud day for the right wing!

"however, she now says she is thrilled Obama did so in order to respond to McCain in a debate. She can't make up her mind"

Wow attacking a woman who lost her son in the war (based on lies propagated by the right wing) on how she would like her son remembered.

The right wing has no decency.