Not Obama’s.
This campaign is insane.
by John Cole| 36 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Lies, Damned Lies, and Sarah Palin, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?
by John Cole| 84 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Lies, Damned Lies, and Sarah Palin, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?
Sarah Palin’s CBS interview with Katie Couric was a train wreck. Video when I can get it.
*** Update ***
Here is one. The video of her answering about Rick Davis was even worse. And that does not even count the clip with her getting riled up about a depression.
More here:
Train wreck. Now do you understand why they are trying to weasel out of the debate?
This post is in: Lies, Damned Lies, and Sarah Palin, Republican Stupidity
This is great reading. We learn that:
1. The New York lawyer that John McCain sent to Alaska to help defend Sarah Palin, Edward O’Callaghan, is not a members of Alaska’s Bar. That’s a problem? (Updated for clarity: O’Callaghan admitted to Newsweek’s Michael Isakoff that he’s providing legal advice.) The author notes:
The pickle O’Callaghan’s wagging tongue has gotten its owner into is that, pursuant to Alaska Statute 8.08.230, a person who is not a member of the Alaska Bar who while physically present in Alaska “engages in the practice of law” is guilty of a class A misdemeanor. And in Alaska the “practice of law” includes “rendering legal consultation or advice”.
2. Alaska is one of only a few states where the Attorney General is appointed by the governor. Sarah Palin’s pick?
Prior to being plucked from obscurity by Sarah Palin, Talis Colberg was a home grown Mat-Su Valley homeboy who practiced workers compensation law by himself out of a small office in downtown Palmer, a farm town (of sorts) down the road from Wasilla. When news of his nomination reached Anchorage, to the man and woman, I and every other lawyer of my acquaintance said, “Talis who?” No one, and I mean no one (other than the few attorneys who practice in Wasilla), had ever heard of the fellow.
Perhaps, in choosing Sarah Palin herself, McCain was just following her lead. Being Mavericky! Talis Colberg has since gone into hiding. It would be hilarious were it not indicative of how a McCain-Palin administration would operate.
3. Troopergate is a partisan witchhunt? Not quite:
[C]onservative Republican Charlie Huggins cast the deciding vote [to isssue subpoenas]; which puts the lie to Van Flein and O’Callaghan’s repeated bald assertions that the Troopergate investigation is a partisan Democratic witch hunt.
Enjoy: How Alaska’s AG defied the public’s interest to cover for Palin in Troopergate
by John Cole| 36 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
I noticed this, too:
At the Banking Committee hearing today, Chuck Schumer–not generally known as someone who is tough on Wall Street–asked Hank Paulson a reasonable question: why do you need $700 billion right now? You said you were going to use about $50 billion a month; so why don’t we give you $150 billion now and then come back in 3 months?
And Paulson simply refused to answer the question.
This bailout may really be necessary, and all my snarking and concern about the politics of this aside, I think it is in fact necessary. Enough people who have no reason to be supporting this (think Krugman) support it, and enough of you commenters have chimed in to make the case that I am convinced. That being said, the arrogance of this administration is not making this easy.
by John Cole| 69 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
For those of you who have noticed the similarity in the rhetoric and rush to act on the bailout rescue plan to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, here is something else for you to chew on (via Digby):
Paulson said Congress and the administration must move rapidly.
“We must do so in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten American families’ financial well-being, the viability of businesses both small and large, and the very health of our economy,” Paulson said in remarks as prepared for delivery. “The market turmoil we are experiencing today poses great risk to U.S. taxpayers.”
Fratto said it would be “unthinkable” for Congress not to pass legislation this week, asserting the result would be a “very, very serious situation” for the U.S. economy.
“It shouldn’t take much analysis to remember what happened last week, which was a very serious freeze-up in our credit markets,” Fratto said. “Our financial markets right now do not need uncertainty, they need increased certainty as to how this rescue plan is going to go forward — and that they can be sure that there is a plan to go forward — and that will begin the correction in our financial markets.”
Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.
Hey, as Andy Card said, “You don’t roll out a new product in August.” It worked the last time, so you can’t fault them. Last time, the threat was mushroom clouds over our cities. Now it is mushroom clouds over our 401k’s.
This whole thing is stinking more and more, and I have completely lost faith in Dodd. At the end of the hearings before the Code Pink protestors, it seemed pretty clear he was resigned to ramming this down our throats.
*** Update ***
And just to illustrate what these guys are asking for, someone in the comments to another post googled up some numbers:
Whoops! Just did a little bit of googling, and it turns out that 700 b-large is enough to get Hank invited to the G7 all by himself:
Budget expenditures 2008 Country Ranks
1 United States $2,731,000,000,000
2 Japan $1,575,000,000,000
3 Germany $1,477,000,000,000
4 France $1,372,000,000,000
5 United Kingdom $1,237,000,000,000
6 Italy $1,029,000,000,000
7 China $634,600,000,000
Time to break out the pitch forks, folks.
by John Cole| 38 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Election 2008
1.) Why isn’t this comment from Bernie Sanders getting more play:
We must end the danger posed by companies that are “too big too fail,” that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.
I know he is an evil socialist, but I have been asking the same thing for weeks. We broke up AT&T, went after Microsoft, and are thinking about the great gizoogle. Why are we not breaking up the financial organizations that we are all learning are the underpinning of our economy?
And, btw, as part owners of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and AIG, and about to dump over a trillion to prop up the free market, can any of us really call anyone a socialist anymore?
2.) Now that the taxpayer is on the hook for “rescuing” the markets and thus rescuing America, making fun of Joe Biden for calling paying your taxes patriotic seems a little silly now, doesn’t it? Of course, maybe we should just go out and be really patriotic and shop some more, just like President Bush urged us to do after 9/11.
by John Cole| 26 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Democratic Stupidity, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
The fix is in, and the bailout is going to be passed in one form or another in the near future.
How do I know?
Because it is now being marketed as a “Rescue plan.”
Bailout was apparently too unpalatable for main street. So take solace that when you, as a taxpayer, take part in this ginormous game of kick the shitpile down the road until after 20 January 2009, you aren’t really “bailing out” greedy Wall Street types, you are rescuing America. Don’t you feel patriotic? Maybe we can put green ribbons on our car next to the yellow support our troops ribbons that are beginning to fade.
I will leave it to someone else to go back to 2003 and document the changes in verbiage in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Excuse me, I mean the liberation of Iraq.