Before & After w/Sir Tardsalawt

THIS (bears repeating, and so I shall, though I cants taketh credit therefor):

WASHINGTON...BAILOUT CRISIS...THIS WEEK-ISH:
....BEFORE MCCAIN GOT THERE:

Congress looked close to reaching a deal to approve a $700 billion plan to bail out the U.S. financial system and President George W. Bush called an emergency meeting for Thursday to hammer out details.
The move toward a deal will likely calm U.S. markets, which were in turmoil on Wednesday as negotiations dragged on. Investors stampeded into cash and safe-haven assets, briefly sending short-term interest rates below zero. Experts said banks were hoarding cash, fearful that if they loaned money to other banks they might not get repaid.
But with a deal near, U.S. stock futures were up about 0.5 percent after earlier being negative, suggesting a firmer open for Wall Street on Thursday. Asian stock markets also retraced earlier losses.
Bush warned of a looming economic disaster if Congress failed to act swiftly to fund the $700 billion bailout that would be larger than the total cost of the Iraq war.
Bush offered few details about the makeup of the emerging deal for a bailout.
U.S. congressional Democrats and Republicans plan to meet on Thursday to draft a final bipartisan plan, a Democratic source told Reuters on Wednesday night.
"Not too many unresolved issues remain," the source said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd expressed optimism a deal was nearing.
"We're not there yet," Dodd told reporters, adding there was a "good possibility we'll get there in a day or so."

AFTER MCCAIN ARRIVED:

Republican revolt stalled urgent efforts to lash together a national economic rescue plan Thursday, a chaotic turnaround on a day that had seemed headed for a success that President Bush, both political parties and their presidential candidates could celebrate at an extraordinary White House meeting.

Weary congressional negotiators worked into the night, joined by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in an effort to revive or rework the $700 billion proposal that President Bush said must be quickly approved by Congress to stave off potentially "a long and deep recession."

They gave up after 10 p.m. EDT, more than an hour after the lone House Republican involved, Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, left the room. Democrats blamed the House Republicans for the apparent stalemate. Those conservatives have complained that the plan would be too costly for taxpayers and would be an unacceptable federal intrusion into private business.

Wow, thanks for getting to War-shington to make sure this deal went through, McCain!!!!!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a new round of late-night discussions Thursday in a bid to get the deal back on track, set to be joined by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke.

"John McCain did nothing to help, he only hurt the process," the senior Democrat said at a joint news conference with Senate banking committee chairman Christopher Dodd.

Barney Frank, the Democratic chair of the House of Representatives financial services committee, said: "I think this was a campaign ploy for Senator McCain.

"I think they then had the problem that there might not have been enough of a deadlock for him to resolve," he said, after Dodd had earlier announced an in-principle agreement with some senior Republicans on the bailout package.

The meeting convened by Bush was a "photo op and political theater that had nothing to do with us getting to work," Dodd said.

OH, and LOLZ!

There's that Phag talk again....

Bush is addressing the nation.

/I like money.

Holy Crap....

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3382

read, for one in your life....for the love of all that is holy (or unholy, depending on your preference...you see, shoving your religious beliefs down people's throats is FARKIN RETARDED!!!!!!)


/barkeep!! another 'round right here, STAT.

There is NO GODDAMNED PAUSE BUTTON IN the White House, BIATCH!

Wow. Just wow.

McCain, you FAIL.


/that is all.
//friggin' ASSHATS

Ba da dat da dahh, I'm lovin' it!

Scales. Eyes. McCain.

14 Sep 2008 12:52 pm

Reading the "press" in this surreal climate right now, one is tempted to despair. I'm not giving in to it, because I still believe that the actual truth matters in the world. If propaganda could win in the end against truth, then Bush's approval ratings would be somewhere in the high 80s. They are in the lower 30s. In the end, the American people are not fools. And facts are facts. Right now, we are being subjected to an absolutely disorienting blizzard of lies and absurdities (Palin is a lying absurdity) from the McCain campaign. The idea is to so disorient people, to throw so many new concepts, brands, lies, images, marketing and distortions at them that they will not be able to focus on the issues in this election, and the real choices serious people have to make.

But facts are stubborn things, as someone once said.

In the end, the fact of no WMDs in Iraq is indisputable.

The fact that Bush appointed a know-nothing apparatchik to deal with hurricanes is unavoidable. The fact that Bush made no serious preparations for occupying Iraq is clear as day. The fact that he and his party have added $32 trillion to the debt of the next generation is now part of the global financial system. The fact that the Bush administration effectively withdrew the United States from the Geneva Conventions and have legitimized the torture of prisoners across the world is empirically indisputable. The fact that Bush has failed to stem Iran's growing nuclear capabilities is inescapable. The fact that under George W. Bush, the country suffered its biggest attack in history, and the mass-murder of 3,000 people by religious fanatics, and that he was warned about this and did nothing is simply history. The fact that in his presidency, the West missed a critical window of opportunity to develop new forms of energy and to wean ourselves off foreign oil is staring us in the face. And the fact that after seven years, this president who once declared that he would get him dead or alive still has not apprehended the man who planned the 9/11 attacks is equally beyond dispute. And the fact that under George W. Bush - far from finding and killing these monsters, we gave them a new sanctuary and did virtually nothing to stem or control the possible supply of WMDS to al Qaeda is equally indisputable. It is equally indisputable that only one individual has been successfully prosecuted in the war on terror and he will be out of jail soon enough, because the evidence that could have convicted him could not be introduced into a court of law.

In the end, whatever the power of the religious fundamentalist movement that is now the GOP in simply denying reality, reality wins. And the fact that John McCain is now a serial and shameless liar will also sink in. The question before us is not whether this will be one day understood to be true. The question is whether it will be flushed out in time.

We cannot control these despicable liars in the McCain campaign. We can only tell the truth as fearlessly and as relentlessly and as continuously as we can until November 4. We must do our duty. And if the American people want to re-elect the machine that has helped destroy this country's national security, global reputation and economic health, then that is their choice. But I am not so depressed to think that they will.

We must give them the truth. And that will feel like hell. And we must tell it like Truman told it: cheerfully, passionately and relentlessly.

UTTERLY SCRUMPTIOUS~!~ (That from The Atlantic Monthly's Andrew Sullivan, and he RAWKS IT!). I happened upon an episode of a cable network politically oriented discussion programme this evening and have completely developed a MAJOR girl-stiffy for Mr.Sullivan. I do, however, add the caveat that I am basing this literary, socio-political lust wholly on the interview I saw this evening (which was FUCKING STELLAR!!!!), and have not yet had the opportunity to read his escribes as of press time. More on that later.

In case you're unfamiliar or familiar and preemptively biased:

The Atlantic (formerly known as The Atlantic Monthly) is an American magazine founded in Boston in 1857. Originally created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine, its current format is of a general editorial magazine. Written from a center-right perspective with content focusing on "foreign affairs, politics, and the economy [as well as] cultural trends", it is primarily aimed at a target audience of "thought leaders".^[1][2]

The magazine's founders were a group of writers that included Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and James Russell Lowell (who would become its first editor). The current CEO and group publisher is John Fox Sullivan.^[3]

(yeah, yeah, Wiki - STFU and GBTW, then, 'roight?).

You know who else I really dig? Rachel Maddow. Yep! I like Pat Buchanan, the dude above AND Rachel Maddow. What can I say? Call me crazy, I like to listen to points of view that both differ from and are similar to mine, versus solely one or the other. I like Rachel Maddow because her show is that perfect blend of smart / quirky / feisty / intelligent / topical / relevant without being too much of any of those things, nor too little. I do enjoy the Olberman, but sense, at times, that he's SO very, very [something I can't immediately put my finger on, as the muscle relaxers and motrin are finally kicking in....maybe...after a brutal weekend of musculoskeletal heinousness] that I find my "ut oh, bias-o-meter tingling ever so slightly.and while not to a great enough degree to cause me to instantly render his sentiments fraudulent and utterly without merit (e.g., the same ascription* I give to ANY of the bloated, drivel-spewing TARDS on Faux "News"), at least enough to make me twitch ever so slightly.

I digress.

My random, round-about point is that folks, this elections is CRITICAL - CODE BLUE. Truly. Surely, you must see that. Hell, you MUST feel that, or frankly, you might just be dead. So, for me, the partisan bullshit gloves are off, and the public figures I come across in my search for something remotely approaching "truth" (versus "truthiness") whose words resonate with me are the folks I'm going to tell you about. Sure, I know - you hear Pat Buchanan and your anus puckers because he's an evil conservative nazi person! (He's actually quite brilliant - and while I may not agree with the entirety of his platform, that in and of itself is what I'm farkin TALKING ABOUT HERE - argh. I can't even continue. Brain hurts. Too tired. Something about ferretting out your truth and piecing it together from sources that span the continuum, for it is then and only then that you'll have the necessarily complete basis upon which to rest your convictions. If you obtain your news, your facts and your information from just one source, you (unfortunately) are being mislead, lied to and utterly and completely BAMBOOZLED. And that sucks.

/* Not sure if this is an actual word, too beat at the moment to look it up. I reserve the right to claim ownership of the proprietary rights inherent in the formation of a new word, should that be the case.....good lord, must stop now, making so very little sense.....

Heh heh...levity!

True Dat.

"The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.

The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.

Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.

This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ("Greed Is Good!") capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.

A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.

Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess – that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?

"Government must save us!" cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government – the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt – all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.

Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.

We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.

The party's over

Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.

But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.

As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.

At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.

Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.

John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or "bomb, bomb, bomb," with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.

Who are we kidding?

What we are witnessing today is how empires end.

The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.

Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.

What the Greatest Generation handed down to us – the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved – the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away."

That's what I'm talking about, people.