Sarah Palin: I QUIT.

A GOP Presidential prospect for 2012 hadn't melted down yet this week. But I figured, it's Friday so there's still time. And sure enough--

I'm reading that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, apparently upset about a Vanity Fair article out this week that quoted anonymous former McCain staffers who said that she was difficult to work with, has decided to quit.

No, not in the sense of 'won't run for re-election.' More in the sense of 'I quit.' Now.

In a stunning move, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's 2008 vice presidential running mate, announced today that she'll resign later in the month and won't seek a second term next year.

Palin, a possible 2012 GOP presidential candidate, didn't answer any questions today and remains mum about her future intentions.

McCain, an Arizona Republican, made Palin a household name nearly a year ago when he picked her to join his ticket. On the national scene, Palin is one of those political figures who inspires passion in supporters and detractors alike. This week, Vanity Fair published a lengthy critical piece on Palin that allowed anonymous former McCain-Palin campaign officials to bash her.

Which, in my opinion, only proves that those who were concerned that she was too flaky and erratic to be President are right. Far from 'balancing' the ticket, the McCain-Palin ticket was erratic and inconsistent paired with erratic and inconsistent.

According to University of Virginia political science guru Larry Sabato, "Bizarro World: Sarah Palin just committed national political suicide by resigning as Governor of Alaska."

He's right about that. And every week another potential 2012 Republican Presidential candidate commits Hari-kiri.

Two weeks ago, it was John Ensign, who was in Iowa testing Presidential waters even as his fate was being sealed. One week ago it was South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Now it is Palin.

This benefits President Obama in two ways. First of course, potential 2012 foes are dropping like flies, but second this is now the third weekend when the GOP would prefer to talk about their opposition to health care, climate change legislation or Sonia Sotomayor but they will be competing in getting their message out with the weekly Republican meltdown story. In fact, the only Republican who is probably counting this as good luck is Mark Sanford.

At this rate, President Obama will have an easy time with re-election in 2012 because there won't be any Republicans left who haven't hit the self-destruct button.

McCain mob threatens Obama counterdemonstrators

I go to a lot of Democratic events. And at some of them there have been counterdemonstrators.

I remember going to listen to Bill Clinton speak at the University of New Mexico in 1992. And as it happened I ended up right in front of a group of pro-life demonstrators who were holding up a big sign calling Clinton a draft-dodger and a baby-killer. They were also quite vocal, although Clinton had a mike and they were some distance away so I doubt if anyone at the stage heard them, but I sure did.

I remember watching John Kerry when he made his whistle stop in Winslow in 2004. In the back of the crowd were two men holding up a 'Bush/Cheney' sign and who booed when Kerry was being introduced. Like everyone else, I chose to ignore them.

I remember also in 2004, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech at the Wild Horse resort near Chandler. On the way in, I passed a group of Bush supporters who were enthusiastically waving signs, and strategically placed to try and make people think that the right road to go down was one that led to the casino there (not the building where the speech was.)

But hey, that's America. We believe in freedom of speech, and as long as people don't actually try to disrupt a campaign event they are every bit as free to show their non-support of a candidate as others are to show their support.

Except, apparently at John McCain rallies like the one in Miami today. It seems like his supporters are willing to threaten violence and engage in mob mentality if anyone dares to show up and suggest that they are not for McCain.

From fivethirtyeight:

Tonight we'll be at the Obama-Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Florida, and we're breaking in from Miami, where John McCain just concluded his "Joe the Plumber" rally at Everglades Lumber.

After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that's what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.

The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.

"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."

Garcia told us that the man who originally had warned the two it was his property when they had first tried to attend the rally with Obama T-shirts was one of the agitators. Coming up just before the scene started getting out of hand, the man whispered in Garcia's ear, "I'm gonna beat you up the next time I see you." Garcia described him for us: "a big stocky man wearing a tweed jacket." He used hand motions to emphasize this was a large guy. We went back to look for the gentleman twenty minutes after the incident but didn't find him.

The two Obama supporters had attempted to attend the event with tickets printed from the McCain website. Both were clad in Obama T-shirts, Sorando in a blue "Obama '08" shirt, and Garcia in a white "Obama-Biden" shirt. They were told that the event was being held on private property and that wearing the shirts or carrying the signs they would be asked to either remove the shirts or not attend.

For an hour during the rally, the two had stood across the street from the lumberyard on public property holding yard signs. Some drivers honked in support, and others honked in disapproval. When the rally ended and the crowd spilled out, the disturbance began.

Note that they did obey the request to vacate the private property, and were situated on the street, which by law is public access (anyone can stand there and demonstrate in other words.)

Well, Tony had something else to say to the man who had threatened him:

Garcia had a message for his stocky, tweed-clad threatener. "You tell that guy he can find Tony Garcia down at the West Dade library every day from 7 to 7 helping people early vote. I'll be there from 1 to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. You tell him if he wants to kick my ass that's where he can find me. Come beat me up."

Not thirty seconds later, John McCain drove by in his SUV and waved at Garcia on the sidewalk, who was happily waving his Obama sign.

But this is something that the McCain supporters don't get. Maybe Tony Garcia got under their skin by using his Constitutional right to counterdemonstrate at a McCain rally. But what else is he going to do this weekend? Darn right, he's volunteering to help people vote.

There are millions of Tony Garcias in the country, people who want change and whether they are as outspoken as he is or not, are going to do their part to make it happen.

We are all Tony Garcia.

The McCain "More Of The Same" Campaign

John McCain = More of the same? Everybody seems to think so!

Here's the latest ad:

1:34

A funny photo

Someone snapped this photo as Obama and McCain were walking off stage from the other night's debate.

It may be metaphorical, but it looks like McCain is desperately trying to get a grip on Obama and pull him back.

Any caption ideas?

Think About This

Facts are powerful!!

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin: what if things were switched around?

Think about it.

Would the country's collective point of view be different? Could racism be the culprit?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.


Educational Background:

Barack Obama:

Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:

University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:

United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:

Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism


Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world.

h/t: Blue in Idaho

Newsflash: McCain Is NOT Bush!

Barack Obama's newest ad. Roll 'em!

:30
Now, I didn't mean roll your eyes, John.

No McCain Lobbyists?

Pinocchio Speaks...

McCain Spokesman: No Lobbyists Here!

1:26

Exposed: McCain's Presidential Transition Chief Aided Saddam Hussein

Murray Waas, Huffington Post:

William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.

During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.

Timmons' activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of the deceased Iraqi leader stand in stark contrast to the views his current employer held at the time.

John McCain strongly supported the 1991 military action against Iraq, and as recently as Sunday described Saddam Hussein as a one-time menace to the region who had "stated categorically that he would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he would use them wherever he could."

Timmons declined to comment for this story. An office manager who works for him said that he has made it his practice during his public career to never speak to the press. Timmons previously told investigators that he did not know that either Vincent or Park were acting as unregistered agents of Iraq. He also insisted that he did not fully understand just how closely the two men were tied to Saddam's regime while they collaborated.

But testimony and records made public during Park's criminal trial, as well as other information uncovered during a United Nations investigation, suggest just the opposite. [snip]

"McCain Has Had At Least 133 Lobbyists Running His Campaign & Raising Money For Him"

McCainSource.com

Lunatic Wing-Nuts Inciting Violence

McCain, suspend your campaign

Transcript

Oct. 14: In a brief Special Comment, Keith Olbermann expresses his disapproval of the McCain/Palin campaign’s “lynch-mob mentality” and their refusal to discourage surrogates and supporters from threatening Barack Obama at GOP campaign rallies.

3:16

The Sarah Palin way to avoid trouble: investigate yourself and discover you are innocent

Sarah Palin seems to have figured out an all-new way to dodge any negative or damaging conclusions in a report due tomorrow: investigate yourself and then declare yourself exonerated.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

Sen. John McCain's running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law.

The move came hours after the state Supreme Court refused to halt the ethics investigation.

Lawmakers were expected to release their own findings Friday. Campaign officials have yet to see that report — the result of an investigation that began before she was tapped as McCain's running mate — but said the investigation has falsely portrayed a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and her commissioner as something inappropriate.

Keep in mind that this probe, begun by a Republican-led legislature back in July when Monegan was fired, was originally supposed to be completed and a report due October 31. The date was actually moved ahead three weeks for the benefit of Palin and McCain-- so that it wouldn't be released four days before the Presidential election. In spite of this, Palin and officials in her administration, who had cooperated with the probe initially spent weeks refusing to cooperate after she was tabbed as John McCain's running mate.

So, apparently afraid of what the report might say tomorrow about whether Palin used the power of her elected office to try and settle a petty family squabble, Palin and the McCain campaign actually investigated this themselves and are now issuing a report clearing Palin.

What a novel concept! Maybe using this as a precedent, McCain will, if elected, allow people accused of crimes to conduct the investigation themselves. Using the Palin-McCain standard for investigations, O.J. Simpson should have been allowed to run the investigation into his Las Vegas hotel room holdup himself. He should have been allowed to collect his own evidence, interview his own witnesses and expect the court and the jury to accept his own report instead of the police report.

This so-called 'report' by the McCain-Palin campaign could be called a whitewash, but that would do a disservice to Tom Sawyer, Richard Nixon and anyone else who has ever been associated with the term, 'whitewash.' It is a fraud and a dupe.

Really, publishing a report you wrote yourself, hoping people will read your report instead of the official one. How stupid do they think we are?

McCain Keating Economics

John McCain in Swiftboat Willie

1:52

What they don't want to talk about
Monday, October 6, 2008 2:05 AM
From: "David Plouffe, BarackObama.com"

Barbi --

Over the weekend, John McCain's top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and "turn the page" to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.

In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.

But it's not just McCain's role in the current crisis that they're avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.

During the savings and loan crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, McCain's political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.

Sound familiar?

In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain's Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts -- and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.

So at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we're releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis" -- it will be available at KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.

Watch a preview right now and share it with your friends...

Thanks,

David

0:35

Full documentary available at Keating Economics.com:

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.

At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.

When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.

The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.

McCain Bails Out Of Michigan

McCain giving up on Michigan

International Herald Tribune:

John McCain's decision to cancel a campaign event in Michigan next week was not a matter of scheduling: McCain is giving up his effort to take the state back into the red column, concluding that economic distress there has simply put the state out of reach, according to Republicans familiar with the decision.

McCain Pulls Advertising In Michigan

CBS News:

In what he characterized as "a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play," Politico's Jonathan Martin this afternoon reported that John McCain is effectively ceding the state of Michigan to rival Barack Obama.

McCain pulling out of Michigan

Reuters:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is withdrawing staff and resources from Michigan in order to concentrate on other states where his prospects are stronger, a campaign aide said on Thursday.

McCain had harbored hopes of winning the state, but three polls in the last week has had Democrat Barack Obama with a double-digit lead in the Midwestern state, which has gone to the Democratic candidate the last two elections.

"Certainly, Michigan was going to be a challenge for any Republican in this climate," said the McCain campaign official.

McCain Pulls Out of Michigan

WaPo:

Sen. John McCain has decided to pull his campaign out of Michigan, deeming it a lost cause after internal polls showed the Republican trailing badly in the economically hard-hit state, according to a senior Republican official.

McCain's television ads will be taken down and most of his staff will be redirected to other places, the officials said, and plans for direct mail in the state will be canceled. There will be no new offices opened as the campaign enters its final stage.

"The numbers have been bad in Michigan for some time," said the official, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak for the campaign. He said some offices will stay open with reduced staff because the leases have already been signed: "We have infrastructure in the state that will stay there. We just won't ramp it up."

Public polls in the state show Obama with a clear edge, and with momentum on his side. The Illinois senator hit 51 percent in the new Seltzer and Co. poll for the Detroit Free Press, stretching 13 points ahead of McCain.

As in national polling, it appears to be Obama's edge on handling the economy that has propelled him to the top of the polls in Michigan.

McCain Moves Out of Michigan: What It Means

WaPo:

What then does McCain's decision to stop running ads in the state -- an all but certain concession that he cannot and will not win it in November -- tell us about his candidacy?

First, that the damage done to McCain at the national level by the bailout of Wall Street is being mirrored in the states too. [snip]

Second, the pull out from Michigan is a sign that McCain's decision to accept public financing for the general election has tied his hands somewhat. McCain has roughly $84 million to spend on the entire race while Obama, who opted out of public financing, is free to raise and spend whatever he can to win the White House. [snip]

Third, and this is the most potentially dangerous for McCain, the decision to pull out of Michigan may be painted by the media as a sign the entire campaign is going south. "In the 24 hour nonstop news world we live in, the act of pulling out will actually be harmful to his candidacy not only in Michigan but elsewhere," predicted one well-connected Republican operative familiar with the politics of the Wolverine State.

Obama: the safe alternative to McCain

John McCain's whole strategy has been based on essentially two elements-- the first is to try and suggest that for America to elect Barack Obama would be to take too big of a risk, and the second is to argue that McCain is a 'safe' alternative.

But I think that might be just a little bit backwards.

An article out yesterday in the New York Times (maybe why one of McCain's managers tried to stage a 'pre-emptive strike' against the Times) by accusing them of bias even before this article came out highlights John McCain's own gambling habits and more importantly ties to the gaming industry.

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.

The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain’s campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world’s second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain’s affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress....

in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.

This is troubling to me on two levels.

The first is the matter of McCain's campaign rhetoric. Now, I know that the way the game is played in Washington is thought lobbyists who can raise millions of dollars to help a candidate-- if he gives them what they want-- or millions to defeat him if he goes against their interests. But Mr. 'straight talk' has staked a lot of his campaign by claiming to be a reformer, and in particular one who doesn't tie himself to lobbyists or special interests. Instead of being a hypocrite about it, why not just fess up, and say 'I've been a tool of the gaming industry for years?' The article even quotes a gaming industry expert who calls McCain, “One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” Yeah, there are people who might have trouble with that one, but at least then McCain wouldn't be pretending to be something he's not, and that he never was.

The second way this is troubling to me is much more profound, however. Now, I recognize that there is nothing illegal about gambling in a casino, and many good and honest people do. But it also says something about a person's decision making process. And let's face it. The recent past, whether it be McCain's gamble that he could raise enough money fast enough in 2007 to support a $100 million political machine for the primary (a gamble which failed), his gamble that he could skip the Iowa caucuses and still chase down Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination (a gamble that succeeded, thanks to Mike Huckabee getting in Romney's way), his gamble to choose none of the VP candidates his campaign had been vetting for months and instead pick a little-known Governor or Alaska to run for VP (a gamble which looked like it succeeded early on but as time goes on appears more and more questionable), or his gamble last week to play chicken with the debate and try to get credit for the bailout package (a gamble which failed), it is clear from John McCain's decision making process that he likes to take chances, often acting impulsively.

It isn't hard to look for another individual who makes decisions the same way. And on virtually all of them, John McCain has stood right by his side and rolled the dice with him. That person of course is George W. Bush.

President Bush gambled by pushing forward with deregulation, including of banks and of the financial services industry. John McCain stood right there alongside of Bush.

President Bush gambled that we could pass trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. It's true that John McCain voted against the first round of tax cuts, but now he stands right with Bush in wanting to make them permanent.

President Bush gambled that we could take time away from the Afghan war and the people who had killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11 to go invade another country, Iraq. John McCain stood with him on that decision.

President Bush gambled that the Iraq war would be short, easy and lead to a democracy that we could count on to help us find all those WMD that had to be stored in huge stockpiles all over Iraq. John McCain gambled on that right alongside of President Bush.

President Bush tried to gamble with our Social Security into a privatization scheme that would have tied it to financial markets. John McCain stood right there with Bush and gambled on that one too. Thank God that Barack Obama and Congress stood up and gave a resounding 'no' to that one. Imagine how much more quickly the financial 'iceberg' that Social Security faces would be coming at us if our Social Security was all wrapped up in the financial mess we see right in front of us.

The problem with gambling of course is as Kenny Rogers sang in the song, "The Gambler,"

You've got to know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em.
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table,
There'll be time enough for counting,
When the dealin's done.

And for both George Bush and John McCain, their downfall is that second line. Have you ever seen either of them fold and admit to a mistake? Admit that maybe we need to do something differently than what they've been pushing? Well, yeah-- John McCain did change his position on the Bush tax cuts that got us here in the first place. Now he wants to keep them. Trust me, they really like guys like that in Vegas, ones who even when they have a winning hand, throw it away in exchange for a losing hand.

After eight years of a Gambler in the White House (and not a very good one, at that) I'm certain that WE can't take the roll the dice on another risk-taker, especially one who has shown he really doesn't play his cards very well.

Luckily we don't have to. There is a safe alternative. When Barack Obama makes a decision he doesn't gamble. The way he chose Biden is instructive. He collects all the information that he has available. He reads it and ponders what he has read (Obama even took a week off the campaign trail out in Hawaii so he could work throught this decision.) He puts his head together with his advisors (which now includes Biden, who as the chair of the Foreign Services Committee has a great deal of experience in the one area where Obama recognized that he might need some help.) Obama is also a man of faith, so I suspect he prays for help in making the right decision. Then he makes it. And once it is made, he sticks firmly to it. At the same time, he does learn by experience. So for example, this year he opposed a 'vacation' from the Federal gasoline tax (an idea that McCain supported,) relying on his experience from doing the same kind of thing in Illinois and observing that the tax cut failed to reduce gas prices in Illinois (the reason for why it doesn't work would involve a discussion of the mathematical/economic concept of a relatively inelastic equilibrium point on the supply and demand curve which is too complicated to explain here, but Obama gets it.)

With the country facing it's most difficult economic crisis since the 1930's, we need a deliberate and careful decision maker, and one who is forceful in carrying out decisions but also able to recognize what works and what doesn't.

What we can't afford is to gamble on another gambler.

Bail Out Deregulation Trainwreck Expressed

Americans Blame Financial Crisis On ‘Lack Of Regulation,’ While McCain Says People ‘Don’t Want Regulation’:

In an interview on Tuesday with WCAU in Philadelphia, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) backed away from his Sept. 16 claim that he believes in “excess government regulation,” saying that Americans actually want deregulation:

WELKER: It sounds like you’re calling for more regulation. Yet throughout your career you’ve advocated deregulation. Do you now see that as a failed economic policy — deregulation?

MCCAIN: Oh no. People don’t want regulation. They want to live as freely as they can. It’s smart regulation. Look, I’ve called for fixing Fannie and Freddie a long time ago.

A new LA Times/Bloomberg poll doesn’t bear McCain’s claims out, however. It finds that Americans are actually blaming the financial crisis on a lack of government regulation...

McCain’s Embrace Of Wall Street Regulation Exposes Health Care Hypocrisy


McCain Banks On Deregulation:

In the latest edition of American Academy of Actuaries, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) makes his case for “deregulating the health insurance industry by extolling the benefits of the last decade of deregulation in the banking sector:

[Individuals] need to be in charge of their health care dollars… I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health insurance across state lines…Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

In fact, deregulation of the banking industry “offers a cautionary tale about a little-understood provision at the center of John McCain’s health care plan.”

Following a pair of Supreme Court decisions which deregulated the banking industry, credit card companies relocated to states with no interest rate caps and charged “what they wanted” to borrowers in states with interest rate limits. This deregulated environment allows credit card companies to “use pricing practices, like teaser rates, to attract cash-strapped families and then… double or triple those rates without notice.”

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox Finally Realizes The Problem With Deregulation:

Yesterday, the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion bailout plan. During the hearing, Christopher Cox, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), testified that deregulation was a cause of the current financial crisis, including a “regulatory hole” in the credit swap market:

There is another similar regulatory hole that must be immediately addressed to avoid similar consequences. The $58 trillion national market in credit default swaps — double the amount outstanding in 2006 — is regulated by no one. Neither the SEC nor any regulator has authority over the CDS market, even to require minimal disclosure to the market.

It’s rather ironic that Cox is now calling for regulation of the credit swap market. After all, trading in the credit swap market was what sunk insurance giant AIG. Once AIG had “sold large quantities of credit-default swaps to financial institutions around the world,” it required an $85 billion federal bailout to keep its failure from affecting the wider financial system.

But its not just on credit swaps that Cox has come around. He also blamed the the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act - which was constructed by former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) in 1999 and deregulated the banking industry - for contributing to the financial meltdown. He said that “the failure of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to give regulatory authority over investment bank holding companies to any agency of government was, based on the experience of the last several months, a costly mistake.”

Just six months ago the Bush administration found the credit crisis so manageable that it “unveiled a widely discussed blueprint for U.S. financial regulatory reform that called for less supervision of Wall Street by the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

FLASHBACK: Six Months Ago, Paulson Said ‘Our Banks And Investment Banks Are Strong’


h/t: This Modern World
Atrios:

McCain is suspending campaign (whatever that means) and going to Washington so he can have pictures taken of him looking like he's doing something. Asks that Obama do the same, and wants Friday's debate to be postponed, because he can't possibly do 2 things at once.

Reaction to McCain's political stunt:

So apparently, McCain no longer thinks the fundamentals of our economy are strong. So now he's "suspending his campaign". What are people saying about this desperation stunt?

Reid Tells McCain to Stay Away:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thinks John McCain should keep campaigning and show up for the scheduled debate Friday instead of offering his financial expertise - honed in the Keating 5 scandal - to the Senate he has so assiduously avoided the past six months:

...I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama’s suggestion. But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op.

If there were ever a time for both candidates to hold a debate before the American people about this serious challenge, it is now.

McCain Comments On Involvement In Keating Five: ‘It Was A Very Unhappy Period In My Life’


Welcome Back, John McCain!

The prodigal son returns. John McCain has announced that America is finally confronting a crisis that he doesn't feel he can be absent for.

Some fun facts about John McCain: Of all Senators, John McCain has been the most absent. There have been 643 votes taken in the current Senate session: McCain has missed 412 of them.

McCain has not voted in the Senate since April 8th. Since March, he has missed 109 of the last 110 votes.

He missed votes on the GI Bill, energy policy, and in 2007 he missed "all 15 critical environmental votes in the Senate" -- giving him a 2007 rating of 0% from the League of Conservation Voters.

A Bush In the Rose Garden, August 31, 2007

The recent disturbances in the sub-prime mortgage industry are modest -- they're modest in relation to the size of our economy. But if you're a family -- if your family is one of those having trouble making the monthly payments, this problem doesn't seem modest at all. I understand these concerns, and therefore, I've made this a top priority to help our homeowners navigate these financial challenges, so that many families as possible can stay in their homes. That's what we've been working on, a plan to help homeowners.

We've got a role, the government has got a role to play -- but it is limited. A federal bailout of lenders would only encourage a recurrence of the problem. It's not the government's job to bail out speculators, or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford. Yet there are many American homeowners who could get through this difficult time with a little flexibility from their lenders, or a little help from their government. So I strongly urge lenders to work with homeowners to adjust their mortgages. I believe lenders have a responsibility to help these good people to renegotiate so they can stay in their home. And today I'm going to outline a variety of steps at the federal level to help American families keep their homes.

McCain scheme to duck out of the debate Friday

John McCain has said he is suspending his campaign so he can rush to Washington and work on the bailout plan with Congressional leaders.

This is the same John McCain who has not bothered to show up for a Senate vote since April 8.

This is the same John McCain who has favored deregulation for years, a big part of why we have this crisis going on even as we speak.

This is the same John McCain who admitted earlier this year that he doesn't know very much about economics and said he needs to be 'educated' about it.

The truth of the matter is that McCain has been out there campaigning nearly every day while Senator Obama has spent some time off the campaign trail prepping for the debates. So McCain's offer is a lot like an unprepared student who realizes two days before the big midterm exam that he hasn't been cracking the books, trying to figure out a way to get his test push back so he can catch up to the rest of the class.

A Nation of Village Idiots

Don't let them tell you this economic meltdown is a complicated mess. It's not. Our national financial crisis is readily understood by anyone who has seen greed and hypocrisy. But we are now witnessing them on a profound, monumental scale.

Conservative Republicans always want the government to stay out of business and avoid regulation as long as they are making lots of money. When their greed, however, gets them into a fix, they are the first to cry out for rules and laws and taxpayer money to bail out their businesses. Obviously, Republicans are socialists. The Bush administration has decided to socialize the debt of the big Wall Street Firms. Taxpayers didn't get to enjoy any of the big money profits on the phony financial instruments like derivatives or bundled sub-prime paper, but we get the privilege of paying for their debt and failures. [snip]

How did we get here?

That's pretty easy to answer, too. His name is Phil Gramm. A few days after the Supreme Court made George W. Bush president in 2000, Gramm stuck something called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act into the budget bill. Nobody knew that the Texas senator was slipping America a 262 page poison pill. The Gramm Guts America Act was designed to keep regulators from controlling new financial tools described as credit "swaps." These are instruments like sub-prime mortgages bundled up and sold as securities. Under the Gramm law, neither the SEC nor the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) were able to examine financial institutions like hedge funds or investment banks to guarantee they had the assets necessary to cover losses they were guaranteeing.

Read the rest of the article at Huffington Post, of course.

The more and more I read about the history of the US, the more and more I see how terrible Republican economic policy truly is. Not only do they seem to completely remove the middle class, they don't take care of the poor and they run up such insane deficits... and for what; in the 1980s some military equipment that quickly went obsolete and now an unecessary war? I hope these village idiots wake the hell up and put nation before political party.

Deregulation Meltdown

Europeans on left and right ridicule U.S. money meltdown

Los Angeles Times:

It's a rare day when finance officials, leftist intellectuals and ordinary salespeople can agree on something. But the economic meltdown that wrought its wrath from Rome to Madrid to Berlin this week brought Europeans together in a harsh chorus of condemnation of the excess and disarray on Wall Street. [snip]

The spectacle across the ocean has left a lasting impression on many Europeans. Hanna Evers of Berlin, a cellphone retailer interviewed in the shopping district of Wilmersdorfer Street, said she was angry about the amount of money that had been "burned" in recent days.

"And I'm furious when I see the pictures of Americans who thought they were on the sunny side of life and now have lost their homes and have to live in their cars," Evers said. "I definitely do not feel sorry for the bankers who lost their jobs in the last couple of days. I can't believe that a country like the U.S.A. could have been so careless on a money issue!"

"I was taught that the U.S.A. is the motherland of moneymaking," she added. "And now all I can see is a herd of headless chickens running around on Wall Street."

Meltdown and Bailout:
Why Our Economic System Is on the Verge of Collapse

Joshua Holland, AlterNet:

The immediate cause of our financial meltdown is unchecked, unbridled greed. Mainstream newspapers and the business press are doing a fairly good job of explaining how the lack of regulatory oversight led us into this nightmare.

But you have to dig down one layer to find the cause of that situation. Under cover of the ideological euphemism known as the "free market" and with enormous cash investments over the past four decades, business elites have captured the regulatory organs of powerful democratic states -- nowhere more so than the United States -- and promoted their own narrow economic agendas for short-term gain.

The $700 Billion Bailout:
One More Weapon of Mass Deception

Richard W. Behan, AlterNet:

Not since the Bush administration's lies about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" have the American people been so despicably misled.

The Bush administration's proposal to buy, with taxpayers' money, $700 billion of toxic liabilities from the corporate financial titans of Wall Street is a fraud. It is by no means necessary, as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson claims in the agency's Fact Sheet, "to promote market stability, and help protect American families and the U.S. economy."

It is necessary only to assure the financial survival of Wall Street banks and brokerages, the administration's most loyal supporters and its greatest political contributors -- and in large measure the cause of the financial meltdown the country is facing.

These financial corporations lobbied ferociously to be free of government regulation. Had they not succeeded, they could not have done what they did next: They created and leveraged trillions of dollars of complex "derivatives" -- mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps -- all riding on an unprecedented real estate bubble stimulated by their frenzy of creative finance. When the bubble burst, as bubbles do, many of these financial titans faced bankruptcy, their obligations far exceeding their assets.

Connect The Dots

DarkSyde:

John McCain may be confused about the need to keep companies like AIG solvent. But as DevilsTower laid out in his spectacular post, Three Times is Enemy Action, there is no doubt it was the intentional actions of people like John McCain and his economic advisor Phil Gramm over the years that created and nurtured the intricate web of shortsighted stupidity that directly enabled this enormous mess:

This is a bullet deliberately fired into the economy by men willing to exercise their ideology regardless of the cost to taxpayers. John McCain may not have had his finger directly on the trigger, but he was there. He assisted. He not only cheered them on, but claimed until last month that he was also "primarily a deregulator."

McCain: I’m glad I deregulated Wall Street.

Think Progress:

In the wake of last week’s financial meltdown, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been calling for more regulation and criticizing lax oversight of Wall Street, despite the fact that he and former senator Phil Gramm passed much of the deregulatory reforms that led to the current crisis.

Now, John McCain wants to deregulate the healthcare industry:



[ 0:30 ]

Enough!

McConfused Express

Apparently in an effort to correct his statement that he would fire the chairman of the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), in Wisconsin this morning John McCain called for the resignation of the chairman of...

...the FEC (Federal Election Commission)?

[ 0:11 ]

Arrr, Matey.

Finally, a new homebuyer enters the Phoenix market.

Few states have been hit as hard by the mortgage crisis as Arizona. Years of rapid growth, even more rapid construction and unscrupulous lending practices have taken their toll. To make things worse, this has been combined with greedy people thinking they were just smarter than the rest of us so that they could keep on jumping up the housing ladder into more expensive homes until suddenly they were making enormous payments on mansions that were worth less than what they owed *. These erstwhile 'sharks' have become the 'marks.' It seems that every week I see big stickers plastered on the front of the Arizona Republic advertising an auction of hundreds of foreclosed properties. And with the credit crisis, hundreds of them also go unsold at any price.

But it's nice to know that there is apparently a new homebuyer in the Phoenix metro market. A buyer who is known to have bought property here before. A guy who certainly has the cash to pay for some of these homes. A guy who really isn't all that good with the numbers, in fact he doesn't even know how many he has now (so what the heck, one more can't hurt, right?)

Here are some property signs advertising the new homebuyer in town:




and



Hat tip to Tedski at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.

*-- almost too polite to mention, but the areas where there are the highest levels of foreclosures on relatively new and expensive homes have in recent years voted heavily Republican. Granted people who have been hit with a huge ARM reset they couldn't pay and been foreclosed on come from all walks of life and it's a miserable experience for anyone, but probably most of the really expensive homes that are being foreclosed around metro Phoenix, their buyers were the jerk that cuts you off while driving a giant SUV with a fading "W" bumper sticker and thinks social Darwinism is real and that he's (95% chance it's a male) at the top of the gene pool.

Bushed Economy

Yesterday, September 17, 2008:

Matthews Pushes Cantor On Bush’s Handling Of The Economy: ‘He’s Pulling One Of These Katrinas Again’

Ali, Think Progress:

In a contentious segment on “Hardball” tonight, host Chris Matthews accused Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and his conservative allies of “taking off your uniforms,” pretending they’re not Republicans, and running against President Bush. “I’m not going to let anyone get away with that kind of foolery,” Matthews said. He asked Cantor at least five times whether he supported the job Bush is doing — and all five times Cantor refused to answer.

Noting that a “normal president” would be more visible during such a crisis, Matthews compared Bush’s response to the current financial turmoil to his handling of Hurricane Katrina:

[ 4:25 ]

Matthews was visibly frustrated, telling Cantor, “You have to take responsibility, sir, for the policies of this Administration that have gotten us into this mess. You can’t walk away and say, Oh we had nothing to do with this, can you? Say it if you want to. It’s your right.”

Matthews noted Cantor’s refusal to even mention the President: “You haven’t used the word Republican tonight, your party didn’t use it in the acceptance speech,” he said. [snip] “You’re trying to take off your uniforms and run from the field of political battle and claim you’re not Republicans.”

Fleischer: Bush is a liability for conservatives

Amanda, Think Progress:

Bloomberg writes, “There is an invisible man in the 2008 election: the president of the United States. Republican candidates have all but shunned him, save those who need him to help raise money.” Even former Bush spokesman, Ari Fleischer, admitted that the President’s presence would “hurt the party and hurt John McCain.”

McCain Flip-Flops On AIG Bailout In 24 Hours

Satyam, Think Progress:

Interviewed on NBC’s Today Show before the decision yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “we cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else”:

No, I do not believe that the American taxpayer should be on the hook for AIG and I’m glad that the Secretary Paulson has apparently taken the same line.

Interviewed on ABC this morning, however, McCain suggested that he supported the bail out:

I didn’t want to do that. And I don’t think anybody I know wanted to do that. But there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here. They were going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption.

McCain’s change on AIG comes on the heels of economy-related flip flop. McCain told NBC yesterday, “Of course I don’t like excessive and unnecessary regulation.” But on CBS’s Early Show minutes later, McCain said, “Do I believe in excess government regulation? Yes.”

Now I know which Republican president McCain reminds me of.

Quotable:

Our economy, I think, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

-- John McCain, Sept. 15, 2008.

The fundamental business of the country, that is production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis

-- Herbert Hoover, October 30, 1929.