Thinking Right

By Ragnar Danneskjöld

November 18, 2008 8:07 AM | Link to this

Good morning all. Did anyone notice that US industrial production increased last month? Somebody is trying to keep us from having the recession we all want and so richly deserve.

The legacy of President George W Bush is mixed. The marginalization of al Qaeda and of the Taliban, the overthrow of Saddam, and his foreign nation-building - a true representative capitalist democracy in the heart of the perpetually-troubled Middle East - are astoundingly good developments for the world and for the United States, on a par with the pacification of Imperial Japan. Reasonable minds may differ on the cost/benefit calculus there, but not on the inherent good of the achievements. The judicial appointments of Messrs Roberts and Alito rank among the five best in the past 50 years. However, his history of co-operation with democrat-controlled Congresses (2001-2002 and 2007-2008) is highlighted by unconstrained spending for pointless domestic “nation-building,” which until now effectively meant “more bureaucrats on the payroll.” Now it is worse.

The pigs are lining up at the trough. But let’s not limit it to democrat mayors, Ah-nold was making the same grunting noises. All of the big tax states – whose legislatures are run exclusively by the ascendant leftist democrats, and are infected with the tax and spend theory that has driven the democrat engine for 75 years - are at least as broke as Atlanta. Wonder why Florida and Texas are not broke and thus do not seek handouts, unlike California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio? In their benevolence, the voters now impose the same governance theories on the entire country.

Dr. Sowell tackles a broader perspective of today’s subject in this morning’s column, “Its Priceless.” Dr. Sowell’s comments mirror Jim’s argument on the MARTA overlords. MARTA’s sale leaseback is an excellent example of the corrupt corporate mindset urged by wrong-headed US taxation and fiscal policies. We would require a fundamental reform to eliminate such tax-driven shams. Can anyone say “Fair Tax?”

“(I)t was essential to contain the panic in the financial sector.” A true statement, I agree; it was necessary because the financial sector affects every other industry. The justification for the financial bailout is sui generis. “Containing the panic” was the intention of the bailout passed by the democrats in October, and in all fairness it did contain the panic, it accomplished the purpose. I do not and did not believe the “bailout” was the only method that would have worked, nor the cheapest, nor the most efficient – I published my plan on this blog at the time of the Congressional action. I note the terms of the bailout seemingly evolve, and after some wasteful expenditure it is now morphing to something closer to the plan I advocated. But the legislative terms of the “bailout,” especially after the democrat Senate added all the earmarks, now urge the worst instincts of every money-grubbing corporate and political muckety-muck. “Propping up Detroit” has the potential to break the entire economy, and will save nobody other than the Michigan political elites.

“We are seeing a disaster in the making, a blending of social policy and incompetence and a mingling of public and private sector business in a way that puts their risk on our tab.” Brilliant line, proffers the implicit argument that nobody learned anything from the failures of FNMA and FHLMC, the immediate provocation for the recent distress. Some of our leftist friends argue that the socialism first introduced to the US by FDR expanded greatly in the past 180 days; they are right, and the prospects for the US accordingly dim greatly, as reflected by the stock market decline. Now, is anyone ready to talk about the real problem ahead of us, social security?

Side note to PoFo: usually we pray for restoration of health, but sometimes it is more appropriate to pray for G*d’s end to suffering. I do not know exactly where Mrs. PoFo sits on that continuum, but I sense that she approaches the latter. I pray for your health and strength, and for the least suffering for your wife. I perceive that you are not a believer, so please accept my prayers as “best wishes” for you and for Mrs. PoFo.

By Bo Chambiss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 8:19 AM | Link to this

If MARTA wants a bail out they need to hire me. Saxby will do anything for LOBBYIST money..

By Churchill's MOM

November 18, 2008 8:21 AM | Link to this

I have a really up set tummy today so a very short Palin.

Palin may get $7 million for her book.

By Redneck Convert

November 18, 2008 8:30 AM | Link to this

Well, I wouldn’t have a job if folks stopped drinking the beer I haul on account of it not tasting good and the foreign beer tasting alot better. Same thing with the U.S. car makers.

Let the car makers go bust. The workers can draw unemployment and the guvmint can take over their health care and pensions. It’s better for the guvmint to pay $200 billion than for us taxpayers to pay $25 billion. The guvmint just borrows it from China, so it don’t cost us nothing.

There’s a godly conservative principle at stake here. Better for the whole country to go bust than pay one penny and go against Free Innerprize. I don’t see nobody rushing in to help me if I run up against hard times. So what’s good for me ought to be good for the car makers too.

I wish Captain Freedom had of lived and been here to weigh in on this. At least that car he died in in his garage was American made. It’s about the only thing American cars are good for. Except for Ford F-450 pickup trucks, of course.

Have a good day everybody.

By John McCain

November 18, 2008 8:31 AM | Link to this

Saxby Chambliss supports a new national sales tax of 23 percent on everything you buy – food, gas, medicine, everything. He says it will reduce taxes. John McCain disagrees with Saxby Chambliss. So does the Wall Street Journal. McCain says the Chambliss Tax would, “increase tax rates into the thirties,” and would not eliminate the income tax as Saxby Chambliss claims. In a presidential debate, McCain said Saxby Chambliss’ proposal would cause middle class Americans to feel “more of the pain.” Saxby Chambliss is out of step with the middle class. He’s even out of step with John McCain.

JOHN MCCAIN AND SAXBY’S SALES TAX PLAN

McCain Opposed To Chambliss Tax Because of “Tax Rate In The 30s.” At the CNN/YouTube Debate in November 2007, when asked if he supported the Fair Tax proposal, Sen. John McCain responded, “I do not, and I think we should look very carefully at it. And I think we should look very carefully at some of the provisions, which according to the Wall Street Journal would increase an individual’s tax rate up into the 30s.” [; CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate, 11/28/2007]

McCain Said Chambliss’ Tax Would Not Eliminate The Income Tax For Good. “As you know the fair tax has gained a lot of traction. I would point out to you that if you wanted to impose that kind of tax or adopt that system, you would have to repeal the 16th Amendment of the Constitution which allowed for the income tax because I don’t think you or I trust, trust the government that if you go to a consumption tax or a sales tax, whichever you choose or whatever that, that the government when it needs money might just go right back to imposing the income tax again…I think there’s some flaw associated with it, but I think it’s a symptom of the anger and the disgust and the frustration Americans feel about the present tax code. “

By One Voice

November 18, 2008 8:32 AM | Link to this

Dagnard, The more you talk the more you get wrong. McCain will win Pennsylvania? He’ll then win the White House? The legacy of GW is “mixed”? Isn’t it embarrassing to say so much but say so little that’s actually correct? There may be a loony creationist newspaper, Bigfoot blog, or an abducted-by-aliens journal that would appreciate your delusions. You may have more success there.

Jim, Sorry, the incompetence began 8 years ago and is about to end in 9 weeks. Your guys were the ones who wanted no-holds-barred capitalism, surely a nonsensical proposition, and chose to privatize profits while socializing losses. One of these days you’re going to have to look in the mirror and realize that you broke it and you own it, but we’re going to have to fix it and millions of Americans will have to pay for your folly. The verdict is in. Your ideology is a failure.

By Just Nasty & Mean

November 18, 2008 8:41 AM | Link to this

G’mornin Jim, et al,

Like ALL government programs and initiatives, the $700B will be a worthless debacle beyond what any nincompoop could dream up.

Handing the likes of Shirley Franklin, MARTA, the Atlanta Housing Dept. or any government entity sucking at the t!t of taxpayer productivity, will yield NOTHING of value to those who pay the tab, and only entrap more willing receivers into government dependency.

By RED

November 18, 2008 8:42 AM | Link to this

Once upon a time, the Republican Party frequently made the case for smaller government and occasionally backed up the rhetoric with action. Republicans won a historic electoral victory in 1994 partly by trumpeting their opposition to the big-spending congressional leadership and offering the alternative of balancing the budget by cutting spending. The first budget proposed by the GOP majority in 1995 eliminated three cabinet agencies and more than 200 federal programs. Ten years later, the Republicans in Congress and the White House have become defenders of big government. They have presided over the largest increase in spending since the Great Society. As a reporter for the Los Angeles Times put it: “No longer are Republicans arguing with Democrats about whether government should be big or small. Instead they are at odds over what kind of big government the U.S. should have.”1 A Washington Post headline read: “Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government.”2 Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich laments what has happened in the past 10 years: “Republicans have lost their way,” he says.3 Most of that reversal occurred during the first term of President George W. Bush. Government spending has grown from $1.86 trillion to $2.48 trillion—up 33 percent since 2001. As shown in Figure 1, the total dollar increases in the federal budget have grown dramatically since Bush assumed office. Total growth in the federal budget in his first term equaled $616.4 billion. Some of that increased expenditure was a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as homeland security measures. But nondefense spending has gone up dramatically as well: since Bush took office, domestic spending has shot up by 36 percent.4

By Tomhere

November 18, 2008 8:48 AM | Link to this

Hmmmm. Those American-made cars are good for zooming around those racetracks on Sunday. So when the manufacturers have to cut back on their support for the NASCAR teams, the NASCAR teams are forced to cutback somewhere too. Like their schedule. I propose that the first place they cutback would be on the tracks that host two races per season. Like Atlanta and Talladega for starters.

By Fred in Dallas

November 18, 2008 8:50 AM | Link to this

Last week at the Paulding Republicans meeting I attended, Micah Gravley (Chairman for Saxby in Paulding County) challenged those in attendance who voted for Allen Buckley to vote for Saxby in the runoff. He said he understands that voters are frustrated with Saxby. He insists that Chambliss has gotten the message sent by voters on November 4, and is confident that Saxby will be more fiscally conservative moving forward.

After the meeting, I introduced myself to Micah and spoke with him as I was heading out. I told him that if Saxby is recognizing he needs to be fiscally conservative, I want to hear it from him. I told him that when Allen Buckley finishes his pledge to fiscal conservatism, that I’d like to see Saxby sign it.

Micah told me that there are some new commercials coming that will focus on Saxby’s intended commitment to fiscal conservatism. He also said something about Saxby going door-to-door…? I’m not totally sure about what he meant - if Saxby would actually be knocking on my door or if some of his supporters would. He did tell me to come to rallies and try to get Saxby to answer my questions.

Honestly, I’m not ready to vote for him. I need to hear a pretty convincing repentance for the past 6 years and a clear plan for the future before I’m willing to consider casting my vote in his direction.

By Fidel

November 18, 2008 8:50 AM | Link to this

And what is so wrong with government dependency? If your automakers go under, I will send a flotilla over pronto; with men who can keep a Chevy Belaire running for 50 years without any spare parts. Don’t worry, they will leave the cigars here.

By Republicans R Crooks

November 18, 2008 8:55 AM | Link to this

Will Palin’s book have pictures and floating bubbles for dialog? I hear she is using “My Pet Goat” as a template. Woodenhead tried the samething in his ill fated attempt to enter the book writing business, but his drawings were so miserable that even lukavich couldn’t fix em, and the dialog below the level of even pre school children. But the paper was a nice quality, and perfumed at that.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:02 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics, Here’s where our $700 Billion is going

Bank of America said Monday it would nearly double its stake in one of China’s largest banks, China Construction Bank, in spite of the spreading global financial crisis.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:04 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economucs, Your tax $’s at work

Dutch insurer Aegon said it may buy a small thrift in the United States to qualify for potentially more than $1 billion in U.S. government support, sending its shares down more than 8 percent,

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:05 AM | Link to this

SAXBY ECONOMICS, your $700 Billion Bail Out in action

Citigroup’s announcement Monday that it would eliminate 52,000 jobs is one the largest single rounds of layoffs on record, but few think the pain will end there. Breakingviews argued that much of the latest cuts is old news. In a memo to employees, Citi chief Vikram Pandit said the bank “will be the long-term winner in the industry.”

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:06 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics, Here’s where our $700 Billion is going

Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney general, urged Citi to follow Goldman Sachs’s lead and eliminate bonuses for its top executives. Asked about lost bonuses, Winfried Bischoff, Citi’s chairman, told The Associated Press: “Watch this space.”

By dabo

November 18, 2008 9:07 AM | Link to this

Once again, Wooten, you show your true liberal colors !!!!…the bailout was necessary….now you and Bush have let the Socialist genie out of the bottle and she’s not oing back without a fight. DON’T BLAME FRANKLIN for YOUR and BUSH’S creation ! Congratulations Dr Frankenstein…your monster, Mr Wooten is alive and well…

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:08 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics, Here’s where our $700 Billion is going

Goldman Sachs’ top executives had little choice but to forgo their bonuses, Jack Flack says. On Monday, analysts at Bernstein Research joined the crowd predicting a fourth-quarter loss at Goldman.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:09 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics, Here’s where our $700 Billion is going

The Treasury Department said on Monday it had transferred $33.56 billion to 21 banks as part of a capital infusion program intended to help steady the shaky financial system, bringing the total injected into banks since the program began to $148.6 billion.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:13 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics,Here’s where our $700 Billion is going

After clawing back from early losses on Monday, equity markets stocks plunged about an before closing as jittery investors sold amid signs of a deteriorating economy.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 18, 2008 9:16 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics,Here’s where our $700 Billion is going

WASHINGTON (AP) — The two top salesmen for a $700 billion financial bailout are in for a grilling by Capitol Hill lawmakers just one week after the administration officially ditched the original strategy behind the rescue.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are expected to provide greater insights into the shift when they testify Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee.

In a profile published Tuesday in The Washington Post, Paulson, who is overseeing the bailout program for the Bush administration, said he was also working on a proposal that would allow the government to take over a wide range of financial institutions — not just banks — that are in danger of collapse.

Last week, Paulson changed course and announced that the government would not use any of the $700 billion to buy rotten mortgages and other bad assets from banks. That had been the centerpiece of the plan when Paulson and Bernanke originally pitched it to lawmakers.

”Our assessment … is that this is not the most effective way” to use the bailout money, Paulson said at that time.

By findog

November 18, 2008 9:17 AM | Link to this

Dear Jim,

The operative phrase in your essay this morning, “was never intended,” from our White House is the political double-speak that the United States needs to get away from immediately. How can our government make such a bold statement when the Treasury Secretary is changing the bailout’s usage on a weekly basis? There will be a bailout of the Auto Industry because a bankruptcy will wipeout too much wealth in 401k’s, pension portfolios, and change the Super Bowl ad lineup to strictly beer commercials…

By NYT

November 18, 2008 9:20 AM | Link to this

NELSON D. SCHWARTZ Published: November 17, 2008 PARIS — A faltering auto giant whose brands are synonymous with the open road. Hundreds of thousands of unionized workers with powerful political backers. An urgent plea for the government to write a virtual blank check.

Cars from G.M.’s German subsidiary, Opel, which is pressing for assistance from Berlin in the form of credit guarantees. This is not the story of Ford and General Motors, but British Leyland, a car company that went through £11 billion of inflation-adjusted British taxpayer money, or $16.5 billion, in the ’70s and ’80s before going out of business. All that is left of the company now are memories of cars like the Triumph, and a painful lesson in the limited effectiveness of bailouts.

“It’s all too evocative,” said Leon Brittan, a top official in the government of Margaret Thatcher, the free-market-minded prime minister who nevertheless backed the rescue. “I’m not telling the U.S. what to do, but the lessons of the British experience is don’t throw good money after bad. British Leyland carried on for a few more years, but they’re not there now, are they?”

Other experts are sounding the same alarm. “The British Leyland experience is a relevant and cautionary one,” said John Casesa, a principal in the automotive consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group in New York. “The government got in the business of trying to make a winner out of a structurally flawed company. That’s the risk in the U.S. as well.”

Though Continental automakers have fared better than British ones, Mr. Casesa argues that the long history of government support in Europe made companies like Renault and Fiat strong players in their home markets, but not worldwide.

By Stupid is as Stupid does

November 18, 2008 9:24 AM | Link to this

How is Bailing out Foreign Banks & Insurance Companies a good idea?

SEC. 112. COORDINATION WITH FOREIGN AUTHORITIES AND CENTRAL BANKS.

The Secretary shall coordinate, as appropriate, with foreign financial authorities and central banks to work toward the establishment of similar programs by such authorities and central banks. To the extent that such foreign financial authorities or banks hold troubled assets as a result of extending financing to financial institutions that have failed or defaulted on such financing, such troubled assets qualify for purchase under Section 101.

By John McCain

November 18, 2008 9:29 AM | Link to this

My views on Saxby’s pork filled farm bill

DES MOINES, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate John McCain opposes the $300 billion farm bill and subsidies for ethanol, positions that both supporters and opponents say might cost him votes he needs in the upper Midwest this November.

His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, is making a more traditional regional pitch: He favors the farm bill approved by Congress this year and subsidies for the Midwest-based ethanol industry. McCain instead has promised to open new markets abroad for farmers to export their commodities.

In his position papers, McCain opposes farm subsidies only for those with incomes of more than $250,000 and a net worth above $2 million. But he’s gone further on the stump.

“I don’t support agricultural subsidies no matter where they are,” McCain said at a recent appearance in Wisconsin. “The farm bill, $300 billion, is something America simply can’t afford.”

McCain later described the measure, which is very popular throughout the Midwest, as “a $300 billion, bloated, pork-barrel-laden bill” because of subsidies for industries like ethanol.

By Real Republicans

November 18, 2008 9:31 AM | Link to this

Here’s what members of the Georgia congressional delegation said Monday about the proposed $700 billion plan to shore up the financial system:

REPUBLICANS

Sen. Saxby Chambliss: “We must do something because the cost of doing nothing is too great. You never want to see the government have to bail out certain entities, and this bill cannot become a Christmas tree for every special interest out there.”

Sen. Johnny Isakson: “I eagerly await the details of the legislation Treasury will propose. I believe congressional action is not only necessary but essential.”

Rep. Paul Broun of Athens: “I am extremely skeptical about the federal government nationalizing a huge section of our financial services. … Socialism has never worked and will not work.”

Rep. Nathan Deal of Gainesville: “I am cautiously optimistic, provided that appropriate reforms are attached.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta: “All too often, when Congress tries to enact a ‘quick fix,’ it causes more harm than good. At the end of the day, we’ve got to make sure that if the federal government is going to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money, then it better be the right plan.”

Rep. John Linder of Duluth declined to comment “until he sees a final proposal,” a spokesman said.

Rep. Jack Kingston of Savannah: “I’m leaning against it. I want to learn more about it. My problem is we’re told it’s a disaster if we don’t do this, but nobody has defined what that means.”

Rep. Tom Price of Roswell: “The gravity of this situation cannot be understated, and I am working diligently to ensure the taxpayer is protected.”

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Coweta County: “I get that there’s a crisis. I get that there’s urgency. But we need to slow up and put this through subcommittee, then committee, then the full House, where it needs to be open to amendments. … If this is rushed through without scrutiny, I will oppose this bill.”

By Athens Banner

November 18, 2008 9:34 AM | Link to this

Senate work on bailout bill was disgrace Athens Banner-Herald | Story updated at 4:53 pm on 10/4/2008

Well, it’s done. With a Friday afternoon vote of 263-171, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a $700 billion financial bailout bill aimed at establishing some stability in the credit market in the wake of a subprime mortgage crisis that had built into a serious threat to the American economy.

The House, which earlier last week had rejected the bailout bill, changed course after the Senate gave a 74-25 vote of approval to their version of the bill, the version that also was OK’d Friday by the House.

In the wake of the bill’s passage, any number of cable television’s talking heads, along with any number of experts dragged in front of TV news cameras, began dissecting its pros and cons, assessing its impact on taxpayers, the stock market, subprime mortgage holders, banks and other financial institutions. Debate and discussion on the bill are sure to continue for many days, until some actual on-the-ground data-driven assessments of its impact can be made.

But, even in these early hours since the bill’s passage, there is one definitive conclusion that can be reached: Members of the U.S. Senate proved that, even in the midst of a financial crisis that arguably threatened most, if not all, Americans - from business owners, to those in or nearing retirement, to young people seeking loans for college - they couldn’t put petty politics aside.

In the Senate, a financial rescue bill that infamously began as a three-page document swelled to 451 pages, too many of which had nothing to do with the crisis at hand and everything to do with senators slipping in provisions designed to benefit any number of special interests, including themselves in their various attempts to win re-election.

In fairness, what the Senate did - or, more properly, what the individual senators who inserted the numerous earmarks into the financial bailout bill did - is a routine practice among lawmakers at every level of government. Presented with a bill that clearly had to win approval, senators loaded it up with provisions that likely would not have been passed into law on their own.

So it was that, according to an informal accounting from Taxpayers for Common Sense, the financial rescue package included the following, among a host of nongermane provisions: an excise tax exemption for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children that is expected to be worth $200,000 to an Oregon archery company; a tax write-off for auto racing tracks; extension of a tax rebate on rum imported from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; a tax credit for certain corporations doing business in American Samoa; and a measure allowing employers to provide a fringe benefit to workers who commute by bicycle, to cover costs associated with that commuting.

There may or may not be anything wrong with any of the provisions loaded onto the bill by the Senate. But last week was not the time, and the bailout bill was not the legislative venue, for any senator to be engaged in making any sort of purely political calculation.

Perhaps it’s naive to expect politicians to behave like anything other than, well, politicians. But it would have been nice if the Senate had recognized that the serious business of extricating the nation from its fiscal quicksand demanded something more than their smarmy business-as-usual wheeling and dealing. If they couldn’t take a meltdown of this country’s financial system seriously, it’s reasonable to ask whether they are capable of taking anything seriously.

By findog

November 18, 2008 9:37 AM | Link to this

I am just so happy the beer truck driver gunned down in Atlanta was not our deranged RC

By Vets for Martin

November 18, 2008 9:40 AM | Link to this

Chambliss Has Either Poor or Mediocre Grades from Veterans’ Organizations

Disabled American Veterans 2006: 60%….

Disabled American Veterans 2005: 35%….

Disabled American Veterans 2004: 0%…

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America 2006: D-….

Vietnam Veterans of America 2006: 57%…

Vietnam Veterans of America 2005: 33%….

Vietnam Veterans of America 2004: 0%….

Vietnam Veterans of America 2003: 50%….

By findog

November 18, 2008 9:47 AM | Link to this

Tomhere @8:48

You can tell how far north a fella is from by how little he knows about NASCAR. There is only one American Made car on the track, the one with the yellow lights that gets off just before the race starts. It has been 35 years since you could go to a local dealer and get anything close to what’s on the track. The NASCAR schedule will shrink only if trout and dear season is expanded.

By Ga Values

November 18, 2008 9:49 AM | Link to this

Real Republicans 9:31 AM

Thanks for the post, looks like our Congressmen knew what was going to happen. Saxby is laughable, guess he does not consider $153 Billion of pork to be significant.

I opposed this Wall Streed taxpayer RIP OFF from the beginng, so far it looks like the 1st trillion spent has just been shot to HELL. Investing in core banks is probably the best way to go but I’d draw the line at Credit Card companies like American Express & Foreign Insurance companies.

By Do the Math

November 18, 2008 10:13 AM | Link to this

Jim: Great research, I agree with nearly all your statements. Problem is, Republicans now in office are not Conservatives, certainly not Mr. Bush, Mr. Purdue, Mr. Chambliss, etc. They don’t seem to care about who pays or how much is getting paid to the these companies for the wrong reasons.

The Big Three should go in to Chapter 11, the judge(s) should make sure money continues to flow to the distributors, UAW contracts need to be renegotiated so that the Big 3 can compete better with Honda and Toyota, and finally, Detriot needs to start making great cars (not trucks).

The junk they have been selling the American public, and the trucks that the government has been subsidizing is beccuase of lack of vision and hard work of the Big 3 leadership.

Produce great vehicles or get out of the business period!

By getalife

November 18, 2008 10:36 AM | Link to this

“The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq — a “free-fraud zone” where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create. — Naomi Klein

Just more gop stealing your money.

Go back to sleep wingnuts.

By Gator Nation

November 18, 2008 10:59 AM | Link to this

This quote “that necessary intervention by a Republican administration to save the financial system” is an interesting take.

1) The Republican intervention was not necessary. It was a load of crock. The credit crisis was not the crisis it was billed to be.

2) When the opionion writer shows bias toward a political party without justification of said bias, they lose all credibility. Your statement of bias that the republican intervention was necessary, but any intervention by the democrats will lead to a blend of socialism has no basis in fact. Facts should be used to support any opinion regardless of political persuasion.

By Dutchman

November 18, 2008 11:24 AM | Link to this

I am amazed. Bush acted on the advise of his advisors, the Democratic Congress voted to give a blank check - about $700 Billion dollars worth without oversight.

Yes, our Senators voted for it, so did the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi about had a big “O” when it passed.

The Democratic bailout has brought out of the woodwork all the various blood suckers. I think Matra should be congratulated for using the crazy tax code to pull this scam. The “Fair tax” isn’t fair and the current one is worse. A nice simple flat tax of say 15% on all income about a set level. We can start with 200% of the poverty level as the bottom taxable income.

As it stands now, the Democrats are about to spend like drunken sailors(Sorry Navy, but it is just an expression). They still think that taxing Corporations is a good idea. It will raise prices and get more cash out of everyone’s pockets.

I need to find a bumper sticker that says “I told you so!”

By ron

November 18, 2008 11:31 AM | Link to this

The auto companies don’t want a loan,they want a handout.That speaks volumes against doing such.Let them go into chapter 11 until they sort the mess out.Loan them nothing.Let them either earn their way out or die.The companies and the unions have to come to an agreement that keeps the companies viable or they all go down the tubes.Bad decisions have been made by the company officials and the the union officials as well.The golden goose is dead.They are stocked with cars no one wants and for which financing can’t be found.The big three need to become the small two.

Shirley Franklin and Marta?The english language does not have words that would convey my disdain for that combo.

When this is over,somewhere between four and five years from now,the banks will have all the money and a good portion of the property.Then we can start to rebuild.Until then,it’s, “katie bar the door”.

By Mort Merkel

November 18, 2008 11:34 AM | Link to this

“They still think that taxing Corporations is a good idea. It will raise prices and get more cash out of everyone’s pockets.”

Exactly. The price tag levy.

I don’t know why so many people are blind to the granite block reality that that’s what happens whenever business is taxed – they pass it along. Heck, if I could pass my costs (taxes) along to someone else, I would, too. Any volunteers?

chirp. chirp. chirp.

By Dutchman

November 18, 2008 11:35 AM | Link to this

Regarding the big 3 automakers, Germany, Japan and Korea, build far superior vehicles than the US makers.

As a Conservative, the better buy for my dollars is the ideal. Both of my Nissans were built in the good ole USA, not in Canada or Mexico as GM likes to do. Good value for a good price.

It seems they can make a go of it here, but our local auto makers are stuck heading to Chapter 11.

By Pragmatic Patty

November 18, 2008 11:44 AM | Link to this

Someone makes a good point over in the “letters” section: Let the OIL barons use some of their recent RECORD PROFITS to bail out the auto industry. We’ve already paid at the gas pumps. Why are the oil guys getting tax cuts in the first place? They haven’t done anything for the American people besides rape us, then say they didn’t mean to, then slap us around, then say it wasn’t their fault, then rape us again, then send flowers in the form of cheap gas, and next year…. Yes, we’ve paid enough. Let THEM fix it, the bast—-s.

By Dutchman

November 18, 2008 11:57 AM | Link to this

Pragmatic Patty

How simplistic and naive. Let me try to explain in simple terms for your leftist mind.

I sell a product for $50 a unit. I make $5 dollars profit on each unit. For the lefties, thats 10% profit. This is used to expand and add workers in my factory.

My costs go up, between transportation and the raw product, I now have to charge $100 a unit, but I maintain by fair rate of 10% profit - my profits have jumped 100% from $5 to $10 a unit. I guess that makes me a greedy, heartless robber baron.

Try going to school and study something besides the glorious career of Che or the wonderful economic polices of Cuba.

By taxman

November 18, 2008 12:18 PM | Link to this

Glad to see y’all finally figured out the corporate tax. It is a fair tax spread between all consumers. If y’all need a 3rd or 4th TV, then contribute!

By Dutchman

November 18, 2008 12:37 PM | Link to this

taxman,

You betch, if you need gas or electricity, pay up.

If you want to shop at Kroger, pay up.

Great idea - tax the rich and poor equally on all the essentials.

By Pragmatic Patty

November 18, 2008 12:43 PM | Link to this

Dutchman, let me try to explain it in simple terms for your Palinesque mind: I do not wish for more of MY tax money to go to executives who’ve spent decades making selfish decisions. I am all for paying my fair share of taxes, and feel they should be used for schools, roads, vital infrastructure, defense, and the functions of government (such as building levees and ensuring our water is potable) that we, as individuals, cannot perform for ourselves. I resent this money being diverted to enable and console those who continue to fail.

Exxon profits, however, are on record as being all-time high as of late. (Your simplistic explanations notwithstanding, do you believe everything you hear? I suppose your wife was at a book club meeting the other night, too. Heh.) Since the OIL industry’s continued raping of us depends on our continued use of automobiles, then perhaps it’s in THEIR best interest to bail out GM. It’s certainly NOT IN MINE!

By LOLO

November 18, 2008 12:45 PM | Link to this

Ragnar,

It is nice to see someone on these blogs who demonstrate intellect and the ability to break down the issues at hand rather than espousing off-the-cuff emotional rants to complex issues.

I pretty much agree with your assessment of GWB. People have forgotten his achivements. However, there are many domestic issues where he dropped the ball, i.e spending, immigration reform, expansion of the national education policies just to name a few.

Anyway, as for the bailout fiasco, how long do we have until the federal government becomes a major stakeholder in each major U.S. based business? This not only diminishes the indvidual integrity and competition of U.S. corporations but also goes even further to trample of states’ rights via the ability of the federal government to articulate corporate policy on such items as labor in states that currently have a right-to-work tyoe of policy.

By Jack Smith

November 18, 2008 12:52 PM | Link to this

WE HAVE MORE TO DO:

Democrat Jim Martin is in a runoff against Bush Republican Saxby Chambliss for the Senate seat from Georgia. Bush’s Saxby Chambliss voted against spending a few measly dollars to provide health care coverage for Georgia, and Americas needy children. But he supported wasting hundreds of billions of your dollars, and the life BLOOD of Americas finest on an unnecessary war in Iraq.

At a time when 47 million of you have no health insurance coverage, and over 100 million of you with insurance are just one major illness away from complete financial destruction. Bush and Saxby Chambliss voted to make the heart break of bankruptcy relief even harder for all of you to use.

You see, Bush and Saxby Chambliss, and his family don’t have to worry about their health care coverage. They have the finest health care coverage your tax money can buy for them. Courtesy of you. The American Tax payer. In fact, no one but the super rich can afford the health care coverage you the tax payer provide for Saxby Chambliss, and his family for FREE! with your tax dollars.

He supposedly works for you. But he doesn’t think you and your family should have access to the type of taxpayer supported FREE health care that you provide for him, and his loved ones for FREE!. Doesn’t that just make you BURRING MAD!

Vote for JIM MARTIN for US senator from Georgia. Vote for JIM Martin who will be on your side. Vote for JIM MARTIN who will work with President Obama and a majority congress for you. Vote for JIM MARTIN most of all for your-self, your family’s, friends, and loved ones. Vote for JIM MARTIN for a better America, and a better World.

Don’t let Saxby Chambliss make a chump out of you by tricking you into voting against your own best interest. Saxby chambliss is NOT! on your side. He’s not one of you. He is on George Bush’s side. And we all know what a catastrophe the Bush Chambliss administration has been the past 8 years.

Contact all your family and friends and do every thing you can to see to it that JIM MARTIN and GEORGIANS! take that senate seat back for Georgia, and America. No matter where you live in America. This is important to you. President Obama will need all the help, and power you can give him to try and fix this catastrophic mess that the Corrupt Bush Chambliss administration has created.

As I said before you will have to vote in overwhelming numbers to overcome the Bush Chambliss “Let Them Eat Cake” vote fraud machine. Vote early if you can. Then help everyone you can get to the polls and vote for JIM MARTIN. You and your loved ones don’t have to be Saxby Chambliss’s victims anymore.

I know you will get it done. Just like you did for President Obama.

God bless all of you

jacksmith - WORKING CLASS… :-)

By citizen

November 18, 2008 1:04 PM | Link to this

The bicycle was invented, the automobile was invented, electricity was created, credit-default-swaps were invented. This was not a partisan invention, this was a greed driven invention. Go after the inventors of this financial vehicle that has crashed the world’s economy.

By Laughingly Similar 2U

November 18, 2008 1:06 PM | Link to this

The bailout isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom of what started to go wrong ever since the tipping point occurred in our economy twenty years ago: the Milli Vanilli Thing.

Admit it, Wooten, once we couldn’t even believe hip hop rapsters with dreadlocks, then that last vestige of truth, honor, and the american way was lost forever. Then the S&L bailout happened, then the Lewinski, then Iraq, and now this bailout, which I was agin’ from the beginin’ of the begine, by golly.

Iraq is starting to corrupt itself Islamic Jihad style. We are going to see surprise after surprise fall out of Iraq after our enemies make Iraq a pinata.

I have said we aint never gettin’ out of Iraq, and well, the inference there was that if we left, all holy hell would break loose, I mean, we CAN leave, but then our troops sacrificed in vain, becaue our worst enemies are going to rear their Putin-ugly heads.

Trust Palin on THAT one.

By Tech guy

November 18, 2008 1:07 PM | Link to this

It’s a national security issue. We can’t expect China and Japan to build tanks and other military vehicles for us. We have to be able to make vehicles here in case of a crisis that would require that.

By @@

November 18, 2008 1:12 PM | Link to this

Bailout goes from necessary to nightmarish

as is often the case, Jim, when government interjects itself.

At what point in our history did politicians lose confidence in the American spirit? It’s been the conservative party that has expressed that confidence, and now THEY TOO have lost faith.

I have a cold. When I first started working with children they plagued me annually. In the years that followed they became less frequent. I now average one every 5 to 8 years. When people hear my raspy voice, they want to know if I’m taking anything for the cold.

My response has always been “Unless there’s been a breakthrough of which I am unaware, there’s no cure for the common cold so why would I waste money in search of something that doesn’t exist.”

Aaahhsplssszzzzt!

God bless me.

By Laughingly Similar 2U

November 18, 2008 1:20 PM | Link to this

No onomatopoeia, moron.

By Ragnar Danneskjöld

November 18, 2008 1:32 PM | Link to this

Dear LOLO @ 12:45, thanks, you are kind, and you and I are in sync. “(H)ow long do we have until the federal government becomes a major stakeholder in each major U.S. based business?” Your follow up notes reflect greater concern with an unspoken “how do we get out of this mess?” Our friend @@, @ 1:12, offers useful additional perspective to your argument. (Gesundheit, @@.)

You are correct in your concern. The great evil of socialized industry is that the market ceases to respond to efficiency, and begins to respond to political correctness instead. In a socialized world the companies cease to be responsible to their shareholders, and become less attentive to their customers, and are more focused on self-serving matters, esp. income and perqs; they no longer have to run smart, as they have the taxpayer to cover the bills. This world is not merely hypothetical: this Randian-portrait describes the entire Eastern Bloc before 1990, Great Britain (“the sick old man of Europe’) in the pre-Thatcher era, Sweden in the 1980s, Ireland pre-1990, and to a daily-lessening extent India pre 2005.

The observation points the cure: Thatcherism. I doubt there is a domestic politician with sufficient will to remove the influence of regulators, and restore market discipline. A dour outlook, to be sure.

By republicans evil time is up

November 18, 2008 1:37 PM | Link to this

You stupid poor neo-cons who have been duped into losing your jobs your mobile homes your pick-up trucks, now you stupid embreds are going to vote for the same man who helped put YOU in the position YOU ARE IN NOW. You stupid hicks want to complain about losing your jobs 180,000 to be exact and YOU still support SUXBY SHAMELESS the facts speak for themselves wake up NOW and realize the GOP has SOLD DIXIE OUT! P.S. NORTH AND SOUTH GEORGIA HICKS HOW DOES IT FEEL THAT SUXBY SOLD YOU AND YOUR JOBS OUT TO MEXICO INDIA AND CHINA, it seems as if YOU HICKS DONT USE PLAIN OLE SOUTHERN COMMON SENSE.

By Nathan

November 18, 2008 1:44 PM | Link to this

People have to “hear” to understand.

Who didn’t see it coming?

** 2001

April: The Administration’s FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is “a potential problem,” because “financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.”

** 2002

May: The President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, 5/29/02)

** 2003

January: Freddie Mac announces it has to restate financial results for the previous three years.

February: The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) releases a report explaining that “although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations,” “the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them.” As a consequence, unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market. (“Systemic Risk: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Role of OFHEO,” OFHEO Report, 2/4/03)

September: Fannie Mae discloses SEC investigation and acknowledges OFHEO’s review found earnings manipulations.

September: Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies before the House Financial Services Committee to recommend that Congress enact “legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises” and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements.

October: Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.

November: Council of the Economic Advisers (CEA) Chairman Greg Mankiw explains that any “legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk.” To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have “broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards” and “receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE.” (N. Gregory Mankiw, Remarks At The Conference Of State Bank Supervisors State Banking Summit And Leadership, 11/6/03)

** 2004

February: The President’s FY05 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: “The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore…should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator.” (2005 Budget Analytic Perspectives, pg. 83)

February: CEA Chairman Mankiw cautions Congress to “not take [the financial market’s] strength for granted.” Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by “ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator.” (N. Gregory Mankiw, Op-Ed, “Keeping Fannie And Freddie’s House In Order,” Financial Times, 2/24/04)

June: Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying “We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System.” (Samuel Bodman, House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Testimony, 6/16/04)

** 2005

April: Treasury Secretary John Snow repeats his call for GSE reform, saying “Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America… Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system.” (Secretary John W. Snow, “Testimony Before The U.S. House Financial Services Committee,” 4/13/05)

** 2007

July: Two Bear Stearns hedge funds invested in mortgage securities collapse.

August: President Bush emphatically calls on Congress to pass a reform package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying “first things first when it comes to those two institutions. Congress needs to get them reformed, get them streamlined, get them focused, and then I will consider other options.” (President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, 8/9/07)

September: RealtyTrac announces foreclosure filings up 243,000 in August – up 115 percent from the year before.

September: Single-family existing home sales decreases 7.5 percent from the previous month – the lowest level in nine years. Median sale price of existing homes fell six percent from the year before.

December: President Bush again warns Congress of the need to pass legislation reforming GSEs, saying “These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly. So I’ve called on Congress to pass legislation that strengthens independent regulation of the GSEs – and ensures they focus on their important housing mission. The GSE reform bill passed by the House earlier this year is a good start. But the Senate has not acted. And the United States Senate needs to pass this legislation soon.” (President George W. Bush, Discusses Housing, The White House, 12/6/07)

** 2008

January: Bank of America announces it will buy Countrywide.

January: Citigroup announces mortgage portfolio lost $18.1 billion in value.

February: Assistant Secretary David Nason reiterates the urgency of reforms, says “A new regulatory structure for the housing GSEs is essential if these entities are to continue to perform their public mission successfully.” (David Nason, Testimony On Reforming GSE Regulation, Senate Committee On Banking, Housing And Urban Affairs, 2/7/08)

March: Bear Stearns announces it will sell itself to JPMorgan Chase.

March: President Bush calls on Congress to take action and “move forward with reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They need to continue to modernize the FHA, as well as allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to homeowners to refinance their mortgages.” (President George W. Bush, Remarks To The Economic Club Of New York, New York, NY, 3/14/08)

April: President Bush urges Congress to pass the much needed legislation and “modernize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [There are] constructive things Congress can do that will encourage the housing market to correct quickly by … helping people stay in their homes.” (President George W. Bush, Meeting With Cabinet, the White House, 4/14/08)

May: President Bush issues several pleas to Congress to pass legislation reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the situation deteriorates further.

“Americans are concerned about making their mortgage payments and keeping their homes. Yet Congress has failed to pass legislation I have repeatedly requested to modernize the Federal Housing Administration that will help more families stay in their homes, reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure they focus on their housing mission, and allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to refinance sub-prime loans.” (President George W. Bush, Radio Address, 5/3/08)

“[T]he government ought to be helping creditworthy people stay in their homes. And one way we can do that – and Congress is making progress on this – is the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That reform will come with a strong, independent regulator.” (President George W. Bush, Meeting With The Secretary Of The Treasury, the White House, 5/19/08)

“Congress needs to pass legislation to modernize the Federal Housing Administration, reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure they focus on their housing mission, and allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to refinance subprime loans.” (President George W. Bush, Radio Address, 5/31/08)

June: As foreclosure rates continued to rise in the first quarter, the President once again asks Congress to take the necessary measures to address this challenge, saying “we need to pass legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” (President George W. Bush, Remarks At Swearing In Ceremony For Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development, Washington, D.C., 6/6/08)

July: Congress heeds the President’s call for action and passes reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it becomes clear that the institutions are failing

By StaytheCourseBringemonMissionAccomplished

November 18, 2008 1:57 PM | Link to this

bush is such a jerk; he’s changed directions so many times it’s no wonder he is dizzy.

Washington Post November 18, 2008 Pg. 23

Bush Reversal On Iraq Deadline Gives Obama Breathing Room

By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writer

By agreeing to a fixed deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, President Bush contradicted years of promises that he would never agree to anything but a “conditions-based” plan for phasing out the American military role there. But he may also have given President-elect Barack Obama more flexibility in fulfilling his campaign promise to bring the troops home.

By Ragnar Danneskjöld

November 18, 2008 2:04 PM | Link to this

Dear Nathan @ 1:44, you remind me of a funny WSJ article, “What They Said About Fan and Fred”

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 10, 2003:

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.): I worry, frankly, that there’s a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios… .

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), speaking to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez: Secretary Martinez, if it ain’t broke, why do you want to fix it? Have the GSEs [government-sponsored enterprises] ever missed their housing goals?

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:

Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing… .

House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 25, 2003:

Rep. Gregory Meeks, (D., N.Y.): … I am just p** off at Ofheo [Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight] because if it wasn’t for you I don’t think that we would be here in the first place. And Freddie Mac, who on its own, you know, came out front and indicated it was wrong, and now the problem that we have and that we are faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you have given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they have done a tremendous job…

Ofheo Director Armando Falcon Jr.: Congressman, Ofheo did not improperly apply accounting rules; Freddie Mac did. Ofheo did not try to manage earnings improperly; Freddie Mac did. So this isn’t about the agency’s engagement in * * * improper conduct, it is about Freddie Mac. Let me just correct the record on that… . I have been asking for these additional authorities for four years now. I have been asking for additional resources, the independent appropriations assessment powers. This is not a matter of the agency engaging in any misconduct… .

Rep. Waters: However, I have sat through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Housing is the economic engine of our economy, and in no community does this engine need to work more than in mine. With last week’s hurricane and the drain on the economy from the war in Iraq, we should do no harm to these GSEs. We should be enhancing regulation, not making fundamental change. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines. Everything in the 1992 act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals… .

Rep. Frank: Let me ask [George] Gould and [Franklin] Raines on behalf of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, do you feel that over the past years you have been substantially under-regulated? Mr. Raines?

Mr. Raines: No, sir.

Mr. Frank: Mr. Gould?

Mr. Gould: No, sir… .

Mr. Frank: OK. Then I am not entirely sure why we are here… .

Rep. Frank: I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety and unsoundness than, in fact, exists.

Senate Banking Committee, Oct. 16, 2003: Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.): And my worry is that we’re using the recent safety and soundness concerns, particularly with Freddie, and with a poor regulator, as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie’s mission. And I don’t think there is any doubt that there are some in the administration who don’t believe in Fannie and Freddie altogether, say let the private sector do it. That would be sort of an ideological position.

Mr. Raines: But more importantly, banks are in a far more risky business than we are.

Senate Banking Committee, Feb. 24-25, 2004:

Sen. Thomas Carper (D., Del.): What is the wrong that we’re trying to right here? What is the potential harm that we’re trying to avert?

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: Well, I think that that is a very good question, senator. What we’re trying to avert is we have in our financial system right now two very large and growing financial institutions which are very effective and are essentially capable of gaining market shares in a very major market to a large extent as a consequence of what is perceived to be a subsidy that prevents the markets from adjusting appropriately, prevents competition and the normal adjustment processes that we see on a day-by-day basis from functioning in a way that creates stability… . And so what we have is a structure here in which a very rapidly growing organization, holding assets and financing them by subsidized debt, is growing in a manner which really does not in and of itself contribute to either home ownership or necessarily liquidity or other aspects of the financial markets… .

Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.): [T]he federal government has [an] ambiguous relationship with the GSEs. And how do we actually get rid of that ambiguity is a complicated, tricky thing. I don’t know how we do it. I mean, you’ve alluded to it a little bit, but how do we define the relationship? It’s important, is it not?

Mr. Greenspan: Yes. Of all the issues that have been discussed today, I think that is the most difficult one. Because you cannot have, in a rational government or a rational society, two fundamentally different views as to what will happen under a certain event. Because it invites crisis, and it invites instability…

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.): I, just briefly will say, Mr. Chairman, obviously, like most of us here, this is one of the great success stories of all time. And we don’t want to lose sight of that and [what] has been pointed out by all of our witnesses here, obviously, the 70% of Americans who own their own homes today, in no small measure, due because of the work that’s been done here. And that shouldn’t be lost in this debate and discussion… .

Senate Banking Committee, April 6, 2005:

Sen. Schumer: I’ll lay my marker down right now, Mr. Chairman. I think Fannie and Freddie need some changes, but I don’t think they need dramatic restructuring in terms of their mission, in terms of their role in the secondary mortgage market, et cetera. Change some of the accounting and regulatory * * * issues, yes, but don’t undo Fannie and Freddie.

Senate Banking Committee, June 15, 2006:

Sen. Robert Bennett (R., Utah): I think we do need a strong regulator. I think we do need a piece of legislation. But I think we do need also to be careful that we don’t overreact. I know the press, particularly, keeps saying this is another Enron, which it clearly is not. Fannie Mae has taken its lumps. Fannie Mae is paying a very large fine. Fannie Mae is under a very, very strong microscope, which it needs to be… . So let’s not do nothing, and at the same time, let’s not overreact…

Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.): I think a lot of people are being opportunistic, … throwing out the baby with the bathwater, saying, “Let’s dramatically restructure Fannie and Freddie,” when that is not what’s called for as a result of what’s happened here… .

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.): Mr. Chairman, what we’re dealing with is an astounding failure of management and board responsibility, driven clearly by self interest and greed. And when we reference this issue in the context of — the best we can say is, “It’s no Enron.” Now, that’s a hell of a high standard.

By Dutchman

November 18, 2008 2:05 PM | Link to this

Pragmatic Patty,

My condolences, I thought you were just another leftie, you’re not, you’re a far left socialist.

If the oil companies were making 15%-30% profit, then I might agree with you, but you see a number only Congress could love and you go over the hill with it.

Wake up, do you know who is profiting from their 8-12% profits? Retirement funds, Pension funds, men and women who invested some of their hard earned money, just to reap a 2.2% return on their investments.

Besides, if we go after ExxonMobil, what would happen to the 30 Billion in taxes they already pay? Thats right on $70 billion(Dec 2007) in income they paid $30 billion - That seems fair - right? Check it out or continue to blather, spewing your Obama talking points.

I guess the way the world really runs is beyond the comprehension of the far radical left.

By Chad Harris

November 18, 2008 2:14 PM | Link to this

Finally—A Jim Wooten Column We Can Believe In

I fully agree with anyone who opposes every scintilla of any and all bailouts. It’s as much a travesty as leaving the schmuckass Leiberman alone and not stripping him of every committee assignment. I don’t know how the Dems could have been more bipartisan in the last eight years allowing Bush to radically transform the courts; voting for an eggregious FISA bill allowing Telcom Comcom (ISPs) immunity.

I am happy to provide a service for the Rethugs but I know you’ll ignore this advice and insure that I will always see the Dems trounce you markedly in the Senate, House, and White House for the next 30 years at least if not more.

Here it is—your problem in a nutshell The Moose Stops Here

The Moose Stops Here By FRANK RICH ELECTION junkies in acute withdrawal need suffer no longer. Though the exciting Obama-McCain race is over, the cockfight among the losers has only just begun. The conservative crackup may be ugly, but as entertainment, it’s two thumbs up!

Over at Fox News, Greta Van Susteren has been trashing the credibility of her own network’s chief political correspondent, Carl Cameron, for his report on Sarah Palin’s inability to identify Africa as a continent, while Bill O’Reilly valiantly defends Cameron’s honor. At Slate, a post-mortem of conservative intellectuals descended into name-calling, with the writer Ross Douthat of The Atlantic labeling the legal scholar Douglas Kmiec a “useful idiot.”

In an exuberant class by himself is Michael Barone, a ubiquitous conservative commentator who last week said that journalists who trash Palin (more than a few of them conservatives) do so because “she did not abort her Down syndrome baby.” He was being “humorous,” he subsequently explained to Politico, though the joke may be on him. Barone writes for U.S. News & World Report, where his 2008 analyses included keepers like “Just Call Her Sarah ‘Delano’ Palin.” Just call it coincidence, but on Election Day, word spread that the once-weekly U.S. News was downsizing to a monthly — a step closer to the fate of Literary Digest, the weekly magazine that vanished two years after its straw poll predicted an Alf Landon landslide over Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936.

Will the 2008 G.O.P. go the way of the 1936 G.O.P., which didn’t reclaim the White House until 1952? Even factoring in the Democrats’ time-honored propensity for self-immolation, it’s not beyond reason. The Republicans are in serious denial. A few heretics excepted, they hope to blame all their woes on their unpopular president, the inept McCain campaign and their party’s latent greed for budget-busting earmarks.

The trouble is far more fundamental than that. The G.O.P. ran out of steam and ideas well before George W. Bush took office and Tom DeLay ran amok, and it is now more representative of 20th-century South Africa during apartheid than 21st-century America. The proof is in the vanilla pudding. When David Letterman said that the 10 G.O.P. presidential candidates at an early debate looked like “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club,” he was the first to correctly call the election.

On Nov. 4, that’s roughly the sole constituency that remained loyal to the party — minus its wealthiest slice, a previously solid G.O.P. stronghold that turned blue this year (in a whopping swing of 34 percentage points). The Republicans lost every region of the country by double digits except the South, which they won by less than double digits (9 points). They took the South only because McCain, who ran roughly even with Obama among whites in every other region, won Southern whites by 38 percentage points.

Those occasional counties that tilted more Republican in 2008 tended to be not only the least diverse, but also the most rural, least educated and slowest-growing in population. McCain-Palin did score a landslide among white evangelical Christians, though even in that demographic Obama shaved the G.O.P. margin by seven percentage points from 2004.

The Republicans did this to themselves, yet a convenient amnesia can be found in conservatives’ post-Election Day soul searching. There’s endless hand-wringing about Bush and McCain blunders and Abramoff-Stevens corruption, but there’s barely any mention of the nasty cultural brawls that defined the G.O.P. campaign narrative this year as the party clung bitterly once more to its 40-year-old “Southern strategy.”

There were as many Republican prejudices as candidates. In primary season, the whispered antipathy among some conservative evangelicals toward Mormons grew so loud that Mitt Romney felt compelled to give a speech defending his faith (but was so fearful of inciting further wrath that he said the word Mormon only once). The conservative gatekeeper Michael Medved spotlighted another whisper campaign in May, writing that the popular moderate Florida G.O.P. governor Charlie Crist had been “single since his divorce in 1980 (after a marriage that lasted only a year)” and was the subject of “nasty rumors of possible gay activity.” Crist announced his engagement to a woman weeks later, but by then he was no longer a serious contender for the ticket.

John McCain also might have held Florida had he prevailed with his first choice of a running mate, the pro-abortion-rights Joe Lieberman, but G.O.P. ayatollahs scuttled both him and the abortion moderate Tom Ridge, who might have helped win Pennsylvania. Not that McCain was innocent in these exclusionary escapades. He strenuously sought the endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee, even though Hagee had blamed gays for Hurricane Katrina, referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “the great w*******,” and theorized that Hitler came about because God’s “top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.”

The icing on this rancid cake was the race-baiting of Obama and the immigrant bashing by G.O.P. hopefuls who tried to outdo the nativist fringe candidate Tom Tancredo. Yet Republican denial is unabated. In an interview with Palin the weekend before the election, a conservative Wall Street Journal editorialist asked whether “the G.O.P. doesn’t in fact have a perception problem, that it is no longer viewed as a big tent.” A perception problem? Hello — how about a reality problem?

Yet the G.O.P. really does believe that it’s all about perception. That’s why its 2000 convention offered a stage full of break dancers and gospel singers, wildly outnumbering the black delegates in the audience. Bush and Karl Rove regarded diversity as a public-relations issue to be finessed with marketing. Round up some black extras! Sell “compassionate conservatism” by posing Bush incessantly with black schoolchildren! Problem solved!

The 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign Web site even boasted a “Compassion” archive of photos of Bush with black folk, including Colin Powell. McCain used the same playbook this year, when he headed south to emote over Katrina victims and stock his own Web site with pictures depicting his adventures in black America. He had been a no-show in New Orleans during the six months after the hurricane hit, when his presence might have made a difference.

In defeat, the party’s thinking remains unchanged. Its leaders once again believe they can bamboozle the public into thinking they’re the “party of Lincoln” by pushing forward a few minority front men or women. The reason why they are promoting Palin and the recently elected Indian-American governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, as the party’s “future” is not just that they are hard-line social conservatives; they are also the only prominent Republican officeholders under 50 who are not white men. The G.O.P. will have to dip down to a former one-term lieutenant governor of Maryland, Michael Steele, to put a black public face on its national committee.

Such window dressing aside, there remains only one Republican idea for reaching out to minority voters: Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, recommends pandering to socially conservative blacks and Hispanics with yet more hyperventilation about same-sex marriage. Weird though it may be, gays were the sole minority group that actually voted slightly more Republican this year (though still going Democratic by 70 to 27 percent). Pitting blacks and Latinos against them could open up a whole new bloody front in the G.O.P. civil war.

The only other widespread post-election conservative ideas are Bush 2000 retreads (market-based health care and education reform). Jindal offers generic gab about how the party must offer Americans “real solutions” and “substance,” but he has yet to offer a real solution to his own state’s gaping $1 billion budget shortfall. Indeed, the only two “new” ideas that the G.O.P. is pushing in defeat are those they condemn when practiced by Democrats: celebrity and identity politics. Palin’s manic post-election publicity tour, which may yet propel her and “the first dude” to “Dancing With the Stars,” is almost a parody of the McCain ad likening Obama to Paris and Britney. Anyone who says so is promptly called out for sexism by the P.C. police of the newly “feminist” G.O.P.

At the risk of being so reviled, let me point out that in the marathon of Palin interviews last week, the single most revealing exchange had nothing to do with her wardrobe or the “jerks” (as she called them) around McCain. It came instead when Wolf Blitzer of CNN asked for some substance by inviting her to suggest “one or two ideas” that Republicans might have to offer. “Well, a lot of Republican governors have really good ideas for our nation,” she responded, without specifying anything except that “it’s all about free enterprise and respecting equality.” Well, yes, but surely there’s some actual new initiative worth mentioning, Blitzer followed up. “Gah!” replied the G.O.P.’s future. “Nothing specific right now!”

The good news for Democrats is a post-election Gallup poll finding that while only 45 percent of Americans want to see Palin have a national political future (and 52 percent of Americans do not), 76 percent of Republicans say bring her on. The bad news for Democrats is that these are the exact circumstances that can make Obama cocky and Democrats sloppy. The worse news for the country is that at a time of genuine national peril we actually do need an opposition party that is not brain-dead.

By Laughingly Similar 2U

November 18, 2008 2:28 PM | Link to this

The bailout isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom of what started to go wrong ever since the tipping point occurred in our economy twenty years ago: the Milli Vanilli Thing.

Admit it, Wooten, once we couldn’t even believe hip hop rapsters with dreadlocks, then that last vestige of truth, honor, and the american way was lost forever. Then the S&L bailout happened, then the Lewinski, then Iraq, and now this bailout, which I was agin’ from the beginin’ of the begine, by golly.

Iraq is starting to corrupt itself Islamic Jihad style. We are going to see surprise after surprise fall out of Iraq after our enemies make Iraq a pinata.

I have said we aint never gettin’ out of Iraq, and well, the inference there was that if we left, all holy hell would break loose, I mean, we CAN leave, but then our troops sacrificed in vain, becaue our worst enemies are going to rear their Putin-ugly heads.

Trust Palin on THAT one.

Electricity can be created. That’s quite a statement, Citizen. You know, ever since scotch tape was found 2B an Xray machine, I’ve been cherry to criticize scientifically based comments like yours. So, I’ll simply accept that UR correct. Electricity is created.

However, think about this: If an exotic particle like an x-ray can be created with scotch tape, then that means a molecular bomb is possible, and that scares the sheet out of me. U 2?

By GayGrayGeek

November 18, 2008 2:30 PM | Link to this

First before the election with AJC Manglement at Bookman’s blog and Devastator here, now it’s Chad and the Esquire.

I strongly recommend that all of y’all find a nearby chapter of OnAndOnAnon. Your train of thought has no caboose…

By Dusty

November 18, 2008 2:35 PM | Link to this

Kinda busy these tdays but have to stop for Jim Wooten’s good journalism. And he is kicking up a fuss today and rightly so. This should have been clled “Government funds gone bad”, I can’t help but wonder if Atlanta has done so many things wrong, how many other big cities have made the same mistakes.

Well, first things first. George W. Bush has kept our country safe and given freedom a chance in two others. He is not running for a third term and libs can stop their hate-Bush half true posts. Vote for Chambliss ‘cause we NEED him in Congress.

General Motors has made some great cars. I know because I own one and I love it. Quit running down American products. Let GM get back in business on its own and let us stop subsidizing foreign car makers to come here. Don’t subsidize any business because that is just double talk for socialiam. (Ragnar will give you all the facts & figures in his expert fashion.)

@@……I’m keeping my distance from you and your mean lil’ cold viruses. I got out the mentholytus cough drops just in case. Hope you feel better soon.

For PoFo..don’t know what to say except I am so sorry about the sad news you last posted. Hope you can keep your great imagination going and your wife can enjoy her painting. As always, even though I can’t reach out with a sympathetic hand, I do say a prayer for you and your wife and wish for some comfort and peace for both of you.

By Laughingly Similar 2U

November 18, 2008 2:43 PM | Link to this

A prayer is all I ask of my fellow man, kind sir.

Prayer is free, yet it takes a fortune in faith to say just one little prayer. A glory be. A hail mary pass. An our father. Halloween thy name.

That’s not asking much.

I know less about life now than I did in kindergarten.

By @@

November 18, 2008 2:47 PM | Link to this

That reminds me. The first congressperson to propose nationalizing anything was Maxine Waters (D) when she told the oil companies that “and guess what this liberal will do?” Uh…..uh…..uh

Yup!

A liberal was the first to propose nationalizing private corporations.

By Dusty for MARTIN

November 18, 2008 2:50 PM | Link to this

Jim Martin has my vote. Saxby is SLIME.

By Pragmatic Patty

November 18, 2008 2:54 PM | Link to this

Dutchman, My condolences. I thought you were just another rightie, but you’re not, you’re a world-class mind reader who can clearly see that NOT wanting to perform another socialist bailout of another failing industry somehow makes me a “far left SOCIALIST!” Congratulations! (Are you and Trig in the same playgroup, by any chance?)

By the way, I don’t give a good gosh darn about your little cut & paste oil company stats which only have credibility if one believes they are compiled and reported honestly. The oil companies COULD partner with the auto-industry to bail them out in my opinion, but I never said my government should force them to do it. But please feel free to forward your next tax cut to Exxon. That’s where my Bush tax cut went when I started paying several hundred dollars more a year in gas. Doofus.

By Chad Harris

November 18, 2008 2:59 PM | Link to this

@@

Worrying about Maxine Waters who has minimal power is like worrying about a gnat on a freight train. You can sit in your rocking chair and murmur inane aphorisms the rest of your life. What drove this depression heading clusterf*ck were key Rethugs like Gramm, Paulson, Bush the moron, and a few compliciet democrats.

To ignore the clusterf*cking role of Paulson and the Sec Treas and Republican dominated Congress for 12 years before the Dems gained the slimmest of margins in 2006 is delusional.

Not one cent for “bailouts.” Let the free market roar.

I’d be more concerned about the massive home foreclsures that are putting returning Iraq vets out on the street. There’s something the thugs should work on.

By mm

November 18, 2008 3:01 PM | Link to this

If anyone thinks Iraq has been any kind of success they are a boot licking GOP moron.

By @@

November 18, 2008 3:17 PM | Link to this

PoliFore:

I’ve just now read, on the previous thread, about your wife’s journey. As irritating as I find you, your wife is both blessed and wise in her choice of partners.

Out of curiosity…….is your wife’s (Joy, if I recall her name correctly) most recent artwork depicted in vibrant colors? Based on your description of her, I can only imagine that it is.

If so, let that vibrancy be the color of “the spot” she leaves on your heart.

I will be keeping the both of you close to mine.

Arrrggghhhh, it irritates me when I allow YOU, of all people, to tug on my heartstrings. (ISH)

By Dusty

November 18, 2008 3:19 PM | Link to this

Oh more splamalot (2:50) slime from minibrain libs which I now correct:

I, Dusty, do now acknowledge that I WILL VOTE FOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS.

(I know. I should ignore the spamalots.)

PS..mm @3:01 is a bottle-fed-on-Bush-hate spamalot.

By Dusty

November 18, 2008 3:33 PM | Link to this

Did Chad Harris really say that? Has he gone that far? (2:59)

I’d be more concerned about the massive home foreclosures that are putting returning Iraq vets out on the street. then Chad Harris raves on about Republicans.

Dems have consistently worked against our efforts in Iraq saying it is all Bush’s fault without mentioning anything positive. Now they want to use Iraq vets as propaganda tools against Republicans?

Anything for a vote, huh Chad? Any low down halftruth will do even if veterans are used? You make me wonder if there is REALLY anything I can think “positive” about Democrats.

By Cornbread Fred

November 18, 2008 3:36 PM | Link to this

Hello, Jim! Good day, you got ‘em going this time. Some of you (Dutchman and Patty for example) - I’m going to write on your report cards that you don’t work and play well with others. Get rid of the two-party criminal system and free America! Jim, let’s go get drunk!

By @@

November 18, 2008 3:52 PM | Link to this

Another thing Chad…..

I’d be more concerned about the massive home foreclsures that are putting returning Iraq vets out on the street. There’s something the thugs should work on.

Since you’re obviously a democrat, would you be willing to forego saving those who fell victim to foreclosure through their own lack of financial knowledge?

If you are, then I’d go with exceptions for our veterans.

As I see it, the problem can be found in the long line that is forming behind the investment banks. In a dem’s mind, what’s good for one must be good for all regardless.

In other words, I just can’t see you…..obviously anti anything Rethug separating the wheat from the chaff.

Move along now, and have a pleasant day.

By Chad Harris

November 18, 2008 4:12 PM | Link to this

Scumbag White Racist Suxby Chumpass Fights Subpoena because he’s a Sugar Company pimp

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Sen. Saxby Chambliss is fighting an attorney’s subpoena seeking to question him in a lawsuit by victims of the deadly explosion at a Georgia sugar refinery, prompting fresh attacks by Democrats hoping to oust the Republican senator in a heated runoff. Savannah attorney Mark Tate — who calls himself a “partisan Democrat” — has subpoenaed Chambliss to submit to questions Thursday about whether Imperial Sugar executives enlisted him to help the company avoid blame in the Feb. 7 explosion that killed 14 workers and injured dozens more. Chambliss campaign spokeswoman Michelle Hitt Grasso said Monday that Senate attorneys are asking a judge to throw out the subpoena, arguing that federal law and Senate rules not only make Chambliss immune from testifying in the case, but prohibit him from doing so. “According to Senate legal counsel, the senator is prevented from sitting for this deposition or providing documents,” Grasso said. “They will be filing the motion to quash the subpoena.” Chambliss faces a Dec. 2 runoff election with Democrat Jim Martin after neither candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote in the general election Nov. 4, in which they shared the ballot with a Libertarian candidate. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is trying to make the civil case an issue in Chambliss’ runoff — one of three undecided races, including Senate seats in Alaska and Minnesota, that Democrats need to win to gain a fillibuster-proof majority of 60 seats. The DSCC posted a new online ad Sunday on the Web site YouTube.com accusing Chambliss of trying to duck the subpoena. “Saxby Chambliss is refusing to testify,” it says. “What are you trying to hide?” Grasso said Senate attorneys have told Chambliss he’s immune from submitting to a deposition under the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution, which shields members of Congress from testifying about legislative business in private lawsuits. Senate rules also prohibit disclosure of some documents given to senators without a waiver, she said. “I totally disagree with that,” said Tate, who represents families of two refinery workers killed by the blast and two employees who were injured. “I don’t think, because some issues are related to the speech-and-debate clause, that the entire deposition can be precluded.” Tate says he wants to know if Imperial Sugar executives persuaded Chambliss to sharply criticize a company whistleblower during a July Senate hearing on the explosion. He says he also wants the senator to respond to plaintiffs’ claims that the company arranged a meeting between Chambliss and victims’ families to dissuade them from suing. Grasso said Chambliss denies both accusations. “It is a new low for the Democrats to try to politically manipulate this tragedy,” she said. “In regard to the tragedy at Imperial Sugar, Sen. Chambliss has never been anything but heartbroken for the families and an advocate for them to make sure this type of accident never occurs again.” Tate initially sought to take the senator’s deposition five days before the Nov. 4 election. Tate says he agreed to postpone until Thursday. Campaign disclosure reports back up Tate’s claim that he hasn’t given money to Martin’s campaign, though he contributed to Democratic Sen. Max Cleland in 2002 — the election year Cleland lost his seat to Chambliss. This year, Tate made campaign donations to Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Savannah, as well as presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and President-elect Barack Obama. He also hosted Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean for a July 25 fundraiser at Tate’s Savannah home. “I am not motivated to see Jim Martin get elected; I’m motivated to represent my clients who have lost loved ones,” Tate said.

Uncle Ted Sinking Fast in Snowbilly Hicksville—It will soon be over unless Moron Bush Pardons the Prick

By Chad Harris

November 18, 2008 4:22 PM | Link to this

@ @@

I’m all for rescueing the vets and homeowners with mortgages. I’m all for legislation that would and would have prevented the myriad players from lying to or witholding imfo from those unsophisticated in mortgages (that’s a large group).

I’m totally against any of the previous bailouts which were stupidly passed with no oversight or strings or conditions whatsoever. Like the Iraq fiasco we never should have gone.

By @@

November 18, 2008 4:24 PM | Link to this

Gosh Chad! With your 4:12 it now appears as though we’ve met before.

Although, at the previous meeting, you were using a different name.

You libs always give yourselves away by revealing your passions.

(snicker)

By republicans evil time is up

November 18, 2008 4:24 PM | Link to this

Notice how you dont see the dumba* hicks with their suxby shameless stickers on their mudslinging pick-up trucks or their ford focus,dixie is crumbling all around yall stupid hicks north carolina and florida went democrat you dimwits embreds the south is beginning to wake-up, I figured ALABAMA AND GEORGIA would be the 2 last dumba* states below the mason-dixon line to continue to live off of a history that was lost during the civil war,the southern GOP SOLD DIXIE OUT,wake-up johnny reb all is not lost.

By Chad Harris

November 18, 2008 4:29 PM | Link to this

@@ You’re delusional. Nothing “gives anything away” and we have not met and will not meet.

By Dusty for MARTIN

November 18, 2008 4:31 PM | Link to this

If the war/surge is such a success why isn’t Bo Chambliss in Iraq instead of making all the country club booze parties in D.C.? What’s going to happen to that “surge success” when the Shiite militia calls of the cease fire and the thousands of Sunni insurgents (aka the “CLC”) we are paying millions to get tired of fighting for a country they hate, and there is still no political progress on the most significant contentious issues?

Some 70,000 former insurgents are now being paid $10 a day by the U.S. military. It costs about a quarter billion dollars a year in the three trillion dollar fiasco that’s helping to usher in Depression II.

Ole Saxbuh voted 99% with Bushie in the last eight years. His pronouncements during the passage of the illegal wiretapping debacle were simply false statements meant to take advantage of an indifferent and uneducated populace who is getting the democracy they deserve including the bills Bo writes for the Chicago Mercantile exchange.

Saxby still flies Corporate Jet Air free on company owned planes in a familiar quid pro quo.

“It leaves when you want to leave. It goes where you want it to go when you want it to go there. You don’t have to go through the normal security, and you get a lot more than peanuts.”

Little Bo is a recipient of this largess as well.

A spokesman for US Tobacco, Mike Bazinet, said that it received more requests for planes than it could fulfill and that it generally sent a representative on the flights. A spokeswoman for Federal Express, Kristin Krause, said it was policy to do just that. Ms. Krause rejected the notion that FedEx lobbyists had undue access.

“The way you get there is less important than what you do while you’re there,” said Mr. Chambliss, who spent more on corporate jet travel than any other incumbent senator, the Political Money Line said.

Mr. Chambliss said he never spoke to a lobbyist “about any particular issue” on his trips.

I wasn’t on the plane, but ole Saxbuh flew for free on corporate jets than any other Senatuh.

Here’s lookin at ya Bo and Saxbuh:

Saxby the Sugar Stooge. One of the biggest corporate stooges in the Senate, Saxby took corporate loyalty to a new level at a Senate hearing on Friday.

Based on his demeanor at a Senate hearing on Friday you would think Saxby owned Imperial Sugar Company.Well maybe Imperial Sugar owns him.

Saxby is arguing that a “whistleblower” is responsible for a February explosion that killed 13 people at the Imperial Sugar company plant in Port Wentworth, Georgia. Keep in mind that Graham. H. Graham (the man being questioned) had only worked at the plant for three months, while others allege years of safety violations.

Let’s follow the quotes and then follow the money and even Saxby’s son ,the corporate lobbyist, and his connections:

The Article in the Houston Chronicle says

“Chambliss also said he has not been influenced by any lobbyists for the Sugar Land, Texas-based company or by his son, Bo. The younger Chambliss is an in-house Washington lobbyist for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which also is represented by an outside firm that lobbies for Imperial Sugar. “My purpose has been to try to get the facts out,” Chambliss said. “This guy (Graham) is an agent of the company. How anybody can interpret that I’m doing something for the benefit of the company when really I’m chastising their agent is beyond me … The company’s got to stand on their own. I’m not about to defend them in any way.”

However that is countered by Graham and his attorneys as well as the other Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson.

“Hilder and others have accused Chambliss of doing the company’s bidding on Tuesday when he sharply questioned Graham at a Senate hearing. Chambliss’ questions raised eyebrows because no one aside from Imperial had publicly doubted Graham’s claims. That includes Chambliss’ fellow Georgia Republican, Johnny Isakson. The two rarely split, but Isakson says he has full faith in Graham’s account.”

Let’s follow the money for a second

This might show a little inisght as to why the questions of bias arise.

Look at Imperial Sugar’s PAC $1,000 to Saxby Chambliss this cycle- $2,000 of which was contributed by John Sheptor

John Sheptor is President and CEO of Imperial Sugar who is compensated quite handsomely.

There are several others with ties to Imperial Sugar that have contributed to the PAC Harold Mechler - CFO is a $500 Contributor to the PAC

Gaylord Coan - $1,000 contributor to the PAC is a director

(Apparently Savannah Congressman John Barrow returned some of the money he was given by Imperial and he’s not even questioning them at a Senate hearing)

Saxby Chambliss has received $21k from the Sugar industry this cycle.

Saxby Chambliss has a son Bo Chambliss who works for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a registered lobbyist (the quote is correct there)

Clarence “Bo” Saxby Chambliss has given $2,000 to the Chicago Mercantile PAC.

The Chicago Mercantile lobbyist works on behalf of several companies with ties to the Sugar Industry.

Googling lobbying and CME, we found one article that shows that

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is employing the son of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) to lobby members of his father’s congressional committee and other lawmakers on legislation that may increase trading at the exchange. Clarence Saxby “Bo” Chambliss Jr. is one of two staff lobbyists at the Merc charged with “providing information on issues that impact our industry to decision-makers in Washington,” Merc spokesman David Prosperi said Friday. Saxby Chambliss heads the Senate Agriculture Committee, which jointly oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and must this year pass legislation reauthorizing the futures regulator through 2011. The CFTC’s current authority expires Sept. 30. The panel may vote as early as this month on a bill to reauthorize the CFTC, said a committee spokesman.

Now there isn’t much recusing Bo Chambliss can do with one other lobbyist unless that lobbyist is doing the heavy lifting while Bo is giving mulligans to Judge Smails

Probably not much of a stretch to say that Saxby has some questions to answer about his claim that he is not biased. We will keep searching to see if we can find more connections between Saxby and Imperial Sugar. Or we will let you know if Saxby follows suit of John Barrow and returns the PAC contributions. Conclusion: Saxby Chambliss needs to go home or get a job at some Sugar Refinery (Remember what he did to Max Cleeland) and remember Saxbuh faked a knee injury that

By @@

November 18, 2008 4:33 PM | Link to this

I’m all for rescueing the vets and homeowners with mortgages.

Well that pretty much supports what I said about the “chafing wheat” thingy. So how’s about house flippers Chad?

I’m all for legislation that would and would have prevented the myriad players from lying to or witholding imfo from those unsophisticated in mortgages (that’s a large group).

Breaking it down…..what you’re saying is you are in favor of government taking over responsibility that belongs (and rightfully so) to the individual. So if a flipper or fraudster were to claim “Duh…..I didn’t know.” that would suffice?

I’m totally against any of the previous bailouts which were stupidly passed with no oversight or strings or conditions whatsoever.

And yet, the government promised that there would be. NO BLANK CHECKS

Well DUHHHHHH!!!!!! Chad

By findog

November 18, 2008 4:37 PM | Link to this

Iraqi vets getting foreclosed on has got to be a pure hoax as there is a law to prevent that from happening; their local JAG can square their lenders away.

By @@

November 18, 2008 4:40 PM | Link to this

we have not met and will not meet

Don’t take everything so literally Chad. I’m talkin’ about here in the blogosphere.

No wonder you’re so easily led by politicians. You take words for their literal meaning.

“Words matter…..”

“Words matter…..”

“Aahhh……errrrr……uhmmm”

Yes they do!!

By Dusty

November 18, 2008 4:57 PM | Link to this

That is one long winded spamalot using my name for his tirades @4:31.

Sounds just like Chad Harris but who knows. There is more than one spamalot out there unfortunately!!

MARTIN HATES CHAD HARRIS. Therefore CHAD HARRIS WILL NOT VOTE FOR MARTIN. CHAD HARRIS SUPPORTS CHAMBLISS.

(Well, if you can’t stop’em, join ‘em!!)

By catlady

November 18, 2008 5:06 PM | Link to this

The Congress needs to GET A GRIP, Repubs and Democrats, and TURN OFF THE FAUCET IMMEDIATELY. That means no more bailout money for anyone until those who have received money start doing what was intended with it—freeing up money for lending, etc. Until we see good faith effort from the pigs that have already slurped from the trough, NOT another cent for anyone. Perhaps peer pressure would help get this $350 billion case of constipation moving!

No bailout for GM, Ford, etc. Let them get busy doing what they should have done decades ago.

No bailouts for any more large corps or other entities until they show, with their own money and leadership, that they are ready to do the right thing.

No more bailouts for Halliburton, etc. Oh, wait, they don’t need to be bailed out as they have been raking in the slop for years.

No more bailouts for the Iraqi government. Time for them to man up!

Each pot needs to sit on its own bottom and SHOW it is worthy of help. No more cries of “we are too IMPORTANT to be allowed to fail!” If your leadership is so good as to deserve their high pay, let them LEAD you out of financial problems and earn their pay.

Criminal charges and jail for those who have ripped off the taxpayers. Starting at the top!

Democrats can easily blow their “mandate” if they keep slopping the hogs with taxpayer monies. We cannot borrow (from the taxpayers) our way out of this mess! Show some leadership, Congress!

By AmVet

November 18, 2008 5:23 PM | Link to this

It is almost inconceivable that given the exceptionally dark days just four years ago when the very worst president in US history was re-elected, we have as a nation returned to some semblance of sanity.

The bungling GOP is undeniably imploding before our very eyes and the spectacle is absolutely riveting. And incredibly satisfying.

Two consecutive electoral bloodbaths. Who would have thunk it?

One could rightly ask how this political party could fall so amazingly far in such a short time? To the point that today, they are literally hemorrhaging.

Here’s why:

By: David Limbaugh

In the aftermath of the 2008 Republican electoral bloodbath, many are discussing what direction the party should take to recapture its vitality and viability. Liberals — as if they have the best interests of the GOP at heart — and so-called elitist, Northeastern Republicans seem to agree the party should tack center.

I disagree.

Traditional conservatism and its advocates invariably get bad raps. They’re painted as uncompromising, uncompassionate extremists who won’t adjust to the realities of the 21st century.

Let us hope that the David Limbaughs and the brain dead blogging apologists derided here, continue to promote that the GOP stand on the gas pedal, Thelma and Louise style, while they go over cliff after cliff after cliff.

I’ll say it again. Absolutely riveting…

By Dusty

November 18, 2008 5:28 PM | Link to this

Catlady,@5:06

You are about two years too late. You should have told Congress to Show some leadership then. Suddenly you realize what has been going on.

Criminal charges? Are you trying to get rid of Dems in Congress? Start with Congress to pin on guilt. The Democratic led Congress for the last TWO years. They have thrown up blocks to every forward step presented. How about a litte CONGRESS DID ITfor a change?

By Dusty

November 18, 2008 5:37 PM | Link to this

Well, AmVet,5:23

Dark and dismal as usual. Just put a lid on it until Obama waves his magic wand. All will be sunshine and magic. AND life returns to the GOP, not that it was ever gone.

Just your high hopes, Darth. Just your high hopes. Look at the new cabinet in formation. Now that is also Absolutely riveting!not to mention laughable. Clinton retreads and a flip flopper or two!! woohoo!!!

By catlady

November 18, 2008 5:43 PM | Link to this

Whoa, Dusty! Methinks you doth protest too much! Where did I leave the Congress out of those who should be prosecuted? It is not just the pres who is at the top, after all. Remember, your folks have continued to say this mess isn’t HIS fault. I think your guilty conscience thinks I was targeting the pres with my call to prosecution and jail. But I never said that, and really it is one of those equal opportunity calls to prosecution. Repubs and Dems, Congresspeople and Executive branch folks (and even some in the judiciary) should be put in jail.

I am not sure I am too late. The robbery started long before the last 2 years. It is obviously accelerating now, led by your pres and his henchmen and the Congress (both parties).

I don’t think I am late on my actions. My actions as I have watched the increasing sht that has been coming on is to get out of all the financial markets possible—no loans, no 401k, no mortgage. Just a simple life.

Reread my earlier post and see if you didn’t add something to it that wasn’t there. Try not to be so defensive!

By AmVet

November 18, 2008 5:44 PM | Link to this

Let us hope that the David Limbaughs and the brain dead blogging apologists derided here, continue to promote that the GOP stand on the gas pedal,…

Dustmop, you useful idiot, you’re right on cue. Like an insect to a porch light.

Less than absolutely riveting. But still humorous…

By @@

November 18, 2008 5:57 PM | Link to this

AmVet, I think I’ll start calling you Rosie the Riveter.

O.K. girlfriend?

By AmVet

November 18, 2008 6:05 PM | Link to this

@@, the next brain dead blogging apologist derided here!

You useful idiots will swing at anything won’t you?

It is so funny how you paranoid neoliths take everything so personally.

Enjoy your misery and pray for 2012!

I’ll just keep laughing…

By SOUTHERN ATL

November 19, 2008 8:58 AM | Link to this

GEORGIA SENATE RACE It looks like all of the train tickets to ALASKA sold out on yesterday!!! There is one ticket left in the VIP seating headed to GEORGIA!!!!

Until there is a WINNER in this mysterious race, I will continue with my prediction!!!

On December 2, 2008, the Congress in Washington D.C. will come to order… They will ask “SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS” to stand…..speeches will be made…followed by applauses…and a song will be dedicated…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3YSHwJ_SAA&feature=related

IT WILL BE A LONG RIDE BACK GEORGIA!!!

By Juan

November 19, 2008 11:47 AM | Link to this

When Barack Obama is sharing a federal prison cell with Michael Vick, I just hope the two them can cuddle, snuggle and maybe get one another’s autograph on some prison toilet paper.

It’s All Good.

By bamaboy

November 19, 2008 1:36 PM | Link to this

Send the auto companies into bankruptcy where they belong. There are arcs to company lives. Remember the steel industry? The logging industry? all have seen drastic decreases in recent years. Let the car industry die its normal death. Then all the previous American cars will be classics! You ask about all the UAW workers that will out of work? Maybe they could go back to school and get a real job.