Riders on The Storm

I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.
-Creedence Clearwater Revival




I love that video.

Wow, this market is a POS right now. $1.1 trillion in wealth disappeared yesterday, and even more over the last few months. Grandpappy Grumpy and Mary Moosechunks took credit for the bailout success, and then it did not happen. Then they retracted.

Then McSame said we should not have a blame game 2 hours after blaming Obama for the bailout bill failure. Gawd.

Oh, the Rethugs killed the bailout because Nancy Pelosi is a big meanie!

I am still wary of the bailout. The bastards who overwhelmingly vote Rethug and wanted to be high flyers don't want to pay up. The democrats who owe favors to the immensly wealthy are scared to stick them with a new tax on investment transactions.

The credit crunch is very real, but a friend who works at a private equity firm says that there is billions on the sidelines. Why? Because banks are not loaning money to investment firms for M&A at a decent interest rate. If you are wanting to buy companies, why pay 9% interest when the taxpayer can eat a large chunk of the big real estate shitpile, and free up the investment banks to loan at 6%. (all rates guestimated)

Good point from my friend, but the real problem is a lack of vision. Of leadership. Obama can step up here. Democrats can put together a bill with serious conditions, and Obama can go on the teevee as our party's head and explain. With Grandpappy McSame cry? Sure! So what!

What should the bill look like? I am just a pissant blogger in this 'ol big world, but let me just pass on a few good reasonable suggestions from FIREDOGLAKE:

1) Buy up mortgages at a discount and give people new fixed rate mortgages. The government shares in further house appreciation (only fair since it bailed the homeowner out). This stabilizes mortgage prices and helps people and banks both. It is essentially identical to what FDR did with the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), and we know how to do it. Initial price tag? Probably around 20 billion.

2) Use the FDIC (the folks who take over failed banks) to take over failed mutual and money market funds, make sure the investors get as much money back as possible, liquidate the funds in an orderly fashion (or keep them operating if necessary) and if they are kept alive, kick the people who screwed them up to the curb and change how they do business.

3) Declare a national emergency, with judicial review (unlike Paulson's seizure of ultimate power) and use the authority to review all purchases of banks, to institute oil rationing if necessary (or simpler procedures like "every street now has a 55 mile an hour speed limit, if it is normally higher). Also allows release of oil from the reserve, if necessary.

4) Expand the safety net such as food stamps, employment insurance, welfare and so on. We know this is going to get worse no matter what we do, so why aren't we taking care of ordinary people?

In addition to this, the bill must include the necessary regulatory and tax changes to ensure that this does not occur in the future.

I) All income over 1 million dollars a year (MY CHANGE-PS) from any source, including bonuses and options, to be flat-taxed at 50%. (MY CHANGE-PS)

II) No loan can be sold more than two steps beyond origination.

III) No security can be more complex than the underlying transaction. We need to make sure that this situation where no one can value or even understand the instruments at the heart of this problem never happens again. Mortgages are simple contracts, no derivative based on them should be more complex than they are.

IV) Forbid any credit default swaps going forward and start unwinding the ones that currently exist. It's fairly clear that the people buying it used it to offload default risks they knew were too high for them and the people who sold them didn't understand the risks they were buying. In particular, no default insurance for banks. You loan the money, you are responsible for it.

V) End to end leverage of no more than 12 times. No borrowing one place, then getting more leverage somewhere else, then creating a security based on that money, then using that security to borrow again, and other such idiocy.

VI) No leveraged security can be used as collateral. The ratings agencies are not allowed to give any leveraged security more than a B rating.

VII) Simple mortgages which can be understood by anyone with a grade 8 education. If it can't, it can't be sold, and a judge is permitted to set it aside if it was sold anyway.

VIII) Banks may only sell the portion of a mortgage which is equal to what 30% of the median value of earned income in a zip code can finance. If they want to make loans beyond that level, that portion stays on their books and cannot be offloaded on anyone else. Mortgages should be based on what people can afford, and so, ultimately, should housing prices. If we want to modify this we can allow some modification based on an individual's income, but not full modification. After all, the question still remains whether the sort of people who live in that community will be able to buy and afford the house.

IX) Bankruptcy law fixed. 'Nough said.

X) Insure money market funds (not everything, just money market funds and maybe mutual funds) and regulate them. Allow banks to use money market holdings to meet reserve requirements. This allows an increase in the money supply and a new source of money, which is necessary since there isn't actually enough money in the world to pay back all these debts.

XI) Pay for all this with progressive taxation. A 10% surcharge on those with incomes in the top 1% is a good start, but I would suggest just raising income tax levels starting at about $250,000, closing loopholes and taxing capital gains income at the same level as other types of income.

I would also add a 1 cent per 100 shares tax on any mutual find, stock, bond transaction, and 1 cent per 100 contracts option/commodity transaction.

Good stuff . . .

-Prodigal Son

DOA

The bailout failed to pass the house. Republicans fell into line and voted against it big time. The market is also tanking, down 500+ points or so.

This can be good for the democrats, if we have enough guts. . .

1. Rethugs got greedy and wanted to bailout the rich again instead of average folks, insisting that help for homeowners headed toward foreclosure gets booted. They voted against the average american today.

2. Rethugs are indecisive in an emergency like this one, and put party before our families and country.

Really . . . now is the time for Obama to demand 60 seconds of airtime on the evening news, and have an FDR moment.

If the news needs to have Grandpappy McUnstable blather for a minute let him. . .

-Prodigal Son

Congrats Comrades You Own a Pile of Corporate Sh*t!

Hmmmmm . . .

UPDATE: 12:30 PM: I am sick of the "It's the fault of people who did not pay their mortgages" CRAP! Per Mathew Yglesias;

Nobody forced financial firms to make large, highly leveraged bets on the loans.
-It was conservatives who blocked regulation of credit default swaps.
-It was conservatives who watched as the housing bubble developed and it was conservatives who blocked any action to try to ensure a soft landing once the bubble popped.
-It was conservatives who said we had to make the taxes of the ultra-rich individuals who brought this problem upon us as low as possible.
-It was conservatives who blocked efforts to curb predatory lending and it was conservatives who blocked efforts to investigate fraud more robustly.

-Prodigal Son

Lucky Duckies!

Remember that AIG bailout? Remember the $85 billion in YOUR money to "help" AIG out? Well . . . Hank Greenberg, the former CEO and owner of 10% of the company, will sell his 37 million shares for a cool $114 million.

Thank you US taxpayer for propping up the stock so Hanky-boy can get out!

Poor guy though, he has lost $2.4 billion in net worth since last October. AIG is trading at around $3 bucks now, last October it was $70 a share.

It should be goddamn illegal for any top exec to sell 1 share until we are paid back . . . IN FULL.

-Prodigal Son

A Real Bailout

UPDATED: 9-26-2008: My math was off folks, sry. Fixed
-PS

Just got off the phone with a financial sector analyst buddy in Boston. Folks it's bad. Many small commercial banks with long-time relationships do not trust EACH OTHER enough to loan each other overnight funds to, for instance, loan a small growing biz enough money to meet payroll.

Also, he confirmed to me that he believes that this bailout will CRUSH the dollar more, and it ain't exactly a high flyer right now. Helllooooo $7 a gallon milk.

BTW, can just ON F**KING REPORTER OR DEMOCRAT ASK HANK PAULSON HOW MUCH OF THE $$ WILL GO TO HIM IN DEFERRED COMPENSATION WHEN GOLDMAN SACHS GETS THEIR PIECE?

After hanging up with my friend in beantown, I pulled out my handy calculator and started really thinking about how big a number $700 billion is.

Let's start small . . . how about that $85 billion spent(sorry! borrowed!) to bailout AIG:

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 U.S. Citizens 18+.

Our population is about 301,000,000 ± counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals $425.

Yep, $425 to every person 18+.

Now . . . think about that $700 billion. An amount Paulson and Bush say they should be able to spend WITH NO OVERSIGHT OR ACCOUNTABILITY.

Just asking . . . who benefits the most? Paulson has 10's of millions in Goldman stock, and his net worth is already around $700 million.

Why does he need any help?

-Prodigal Son

You are being PWNED

Here is some of the boolsheet being slung the taxpayer's way this week . . .

PAULSON: This is not an expenditure. … Money will come back in.

BERNANKE: What’s clear is that the $700 billion is not an expenditure. There’s going to be a substantial amount of recovery.

BUSH: Money will flow back to the Treasury as these assets are sold, and we expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back.

Remember these winners?

RICHARD PERLE, Chair of Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board: “Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will.” [7/11/02]

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, Deputy Defense Secretary: “There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be US taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.” [3/27/03]

ARI FLEISCHER, White House press secretary: “Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.” [2/18/03]

LAWRENCE LINDSEY, White House economic adviser: “The likely economic effects [of a war in Iraq] would be relatively small…. Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits.” [9/16/02]

h/t thinkprogress.

-Prodigal Son

um, yeah, you keep working on that investigative journalism

This is just bad reasoning. The Obama campaign has been plagued by short supply and backorders of signage all year. It took us a couple of months to get a box of merchandise.

I'm guessing the low supply is why my sign was stolen out of my yard.

spacedark

"Non-reviewable"

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency"

What's the "I" word that applies? Ignominy? Iggy Pop?

Oh yeah! It's ignorance, isn't it?

"If you poop in your mess kit, you clean it up yourself." I think the Bible teaches that, but billions of people who don't even know the Bible exists believe it and live their lives according to it.

Sadly, Mr. Dawson, a good chunk of voters and church-goers know nothing about either the Constitution or their own theology.

spacedark

The (Latest) Greatest Threat Ever

Panhandle Truth Squad has obtained exclusive footage of Congressional Democrats being briefed by our Noble Gentlemen of Commerce on the current financial crisis:

Scaring the Shiite Outta Youz Guys

UPDATE: I am working on a good post about the past week's financial meltdown and the predictable "Scare the sh*t out of the democrats and they will fold" solution from one of the assholes who brought us this mess in the first place.
-PS


Someone has been funding the inclusion of an "A-Rabs are gonna get yer Wimmins and take over" or something DVD that was inserted in millions of American's local papers.

Josh Marshall is all over it, and he has a good point that this crap can help Johnnie McSame.

Curious . . . anyone get one in their copy of the AGR?

-Prodigal Son

It doesn't count now...

Pic: New York


Since everyone now knows that Sarah Palin is the first major party vice-presidential nominee since Spiro Agnew¹ to have never met a foreign leader, the McCain campaign has set her up on a blind date with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Seriously, this like rifling through the deck to find the card that would've given you a royal flush-- after you just lost all your chips.

That, after this:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Governor Palin, there has been quite a bit of discussion about your perceived lack of foreign policy experience. And I want to give you your chance. If you could please respond to that criticism and give us specific skills that you think you have to bring to the White House to rebut that or mitigate that concern.


PALIN: Well, I think because I’m a Washington outsider that opponents are going to be looking for a whole lot of things that they can criticize and they can kind of try to beat the candidates here, who chose me as his partner, to kind of tear down the ticket. But as for foreign policy, you know, I think that I am prepared and I know that on January 20th, if we are so blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president, certainly we’ll be ready. I’ll be ready. I have that confidence. I have that readiness.

And if you want specifics with specific policy or countries, go ahead and you can ask me. You can even play stump the candidate if you want to. But we are ready to serve.

Y'know, I once had a student-- a senior-- who went into the final week of school with something like a 14 average in my class, which he needed to graduate. Nor was my class the only one in which he found himself in this situation. He continued to insist, however, that he was somehow going to graduate right up to the bitter end, even showed up to take his semester test.

His blind, unwarranted confidence wasn't heartwarming; it wasn't inspirational.

It was exasperating as all hell.

spacedark

¹ And we all know how well that worked out.

Oops

Oh, please, do for healthcare what you've done for banking.

Local Scientist discovers "true" cause of Climate Change/Global Warming

Local scientist Keith Ferguson published a recent article in American Jackass Magazine, which reveals the real cause of Global Warming. Upon hearing of this breakthrough a PTS news team rushed to his home where they conducted the following interview.

PTS Reporter -- Mr. Ferguson we understand you've discovered the real cause of Global Warming.

KF(Keith Ferguson) -- Yessir

PTS -- Tell us a little bit about your discovery.

KF -- Well sir turns out Global Warmin' ain't got nothin' ta do with any a' that stuff Al Gore done said it did.

PTS -- I see. And you've discovered the real cause correct?

KF -- Turns out the earth is just leanin' a bit on 'er axis. 't happens ev'r now 'n then. Heats thangs up in some places, cools 'em down 'n others.

PTS -- Interesting. I assume you have some research and other data to back up your conclusion.

KF -- Didn't need it. Figer'd it out frum ma couch.

PTS -- What about the piles of data and nearly universal agreement amongst scientists who have been studying this problem since the early seventies. Their research shows...

KF -- You know whut you uppity piece a' shit. Them trench coat wearing faggots can kiss my rosy ass. They can take all they insterments and calculatin' and stick 'em where the sun cain't shine.

PTS -- Okay. Let me ask you this. Do you have any evidence that the earth is tilting on it's axis?

KF -- I stuck my head out the backdoor asshole and things looked a little sideways too me okay. Now you better get your ass out the door before I unload with two barrels a' double aught shot. Uppity college boys. A man can figer' out all he needs ta know from his couch.

At this point the PTS news team was forced to flee as Mr. Ferguson's pair of pit bulls accidently escaped from their back yard confinement.

This has been the PTS news team reporting live from the home of Keith Ferguson.

Bunch of Whiners -- Who says we're having a financial crisis

Possibility of a depression...bah.. what a bunch of baloney. Failing financial institutions, Wall Street fluctuating wildly, Leaders so silent you could hear a pin drop... Mr. President? Oh Mr. President... Ah well he's just shy.


Besides if you think there's a problem, just take a look at these guys living in luxurious polyester.

United Peoples Socialist States of Amerikka

Wow . . . congrats America! You now own an insurance company. Thanks to the central banks of China and the European Union, we can put that $85 billion on the 'ol card at a reasonable interest rate . . .

'Course this is OK with the righties, as long as the rich dumbasses who drove FNMA and FDMC and AIG and Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch get theirs, we can all just merrily hum along . . .

Ya know, after this latest batch of bailouts, the right has even more in common with Stalin's Russia. . . aside from the prison camps, torture, supension of the rule of law whenever, conservatives can now throw in state ownership of massive [failed] companies.

Since we are on this kick, why not grab the oil companies too and get some price relief? How about it rethugs? Why stop? Let all your fascistic tendencies spill out completely and let's get this (peoples) party started!

-Prodigal Son

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hey, hey, DNC, how many Republicans did you mimic today?

The Democratic National Committee continues to try oh-so-hard to be Republican-lite. Even to the point of aping the most annoying of Republican slurs against Democrats: that "Democrat Party" thing. The latest letter from the DNC-- along with a letter from Chairman Dean explaining how his car had run out of gas and he just needed enough money to get "to the next town"-- included this bumper sticker:


Not only would "Vote Democratic" been more grammatical, it wouldn't have sounded like they just edited the "For God's sake, don't--" out of the beginning of Rush Limbaugh's latest rant.

spacedark

"A NATION OF EXAGGERATORS"

Stunning Fall for Main Street’s Brokerage Firm

Wall Street's morning after

AIG planning big spinoff

"Full disclosure: I'm an adviser to John McCain's campaign"...

Getting Ripped

WTF is going on with these gas prices? And no boolsheet about supply and demand, because if Houston supplies 17% of the countries refined gas, then prices should only go up 17% right?

Gas jumped in my neighborhood from $3.21 to $5.20. Price gouging causes unnecessary and distructive interference in the natural flow of the free market.

Way to stop it? Some people need to go to jail/hefty fines.

-Prodigal Son

Ka-Boom

McSame in 2007: "I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time."




John McSame, "Putting Country Last"

-Prodigal Son

Not Ready For Prime Time

Anyone else catch the Palin interview with Charles Gibson? You know it did not go well when FAUX news is not playing bits of it every 3 1/2 minutes.

At one point, she was asked about her claim that Russia is just around the bend from Moosepoint Junction, hence she was now Adlai Stevenson.

She said, "They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”

Well . . . when I look out my window I can see the moon, but that doesn’t make me a f**king astronaut.

-Prodigal Son

7 years

And where is Osama bin Laden? Hiding out somewhere? Alive? Dead? Does anyone even know?

Here's what will happen and it doesn't matter who's elected President in November: at some point everyone will just kind of decide that he'd be so old by now that he must be dead. In seventy-five or a hundred years some archaeologists and historians will dig up some bones somewhere and they'll do some DNA testing, or whatever it is they do by then, and confirm that the bones belonged to him and make some pretty good guesses about when and how he died.

It will be reported on whatever the media's equivalent of page B-14 is by then.

No one will care. All of us who lived in these times will be dead, and the living will have-- as the living always do-- their own problems.


spacedark

Sarah Palin Hearts Charlie Gibson

The Rethugs are doing their usual hissy-fit, "Reporters are big meanies!" crap again, and by the evidence I have been seeing, it is working as usual.

Palin will do her first "interview" with soft touch ABC's Charlie Gibson, who will hopefully show some due deference (see video above)

Attaturk runs down the way it will go:

1) Please tell us a series of tear-jerking stories about your decision to give birth to a Down Syndrome Child.

(2) Why are you so gosh darn popular?

(3) Isn't it awesome that your are a reformer, with results that I will not require evidence thereof?

(4) How do you feel about Barack Obama not always wearing a flag-pin?

(5) Tell us about your oldest boy serving in Iraq?

(6) How do you stay in such good shape?

(7) Tell us about the time you saved your family from a feral rampaging Moose with just an SUV, an AK-47 and mortar?

(8) Do you find my bluejeans pleasing? It shows that I'm just your average $10 million a year journalist in a staged Alaskan interview.

BUT, BUT, BUT!!!!

1) Why are you refusing to testify in an investigation of abuse of power now when you promised to testify before?

(2) Why did you inquire into your ability to ban books when you were Mayor?

(3) What books did you want to ban?

(4) Do you believe in the Theory of Evolution? Why or why not?

(5) Why do you opposed abortion even in case of rape or incest?

(6) You're for "abstinence only" education, did you tell ever think to tell Bristol about the wonders of a third sock?

(7) Why did you say your daughter "chose" to keep her baby when you would prevent anyone else from even having a choice at all?

(8) Tell me what specific decisions you made in regard to the Alaska National Guard?

(9) Tell me why your state's proximity to Russia gives you particular expertise towards that nation? And while we're at it, who is the President of say Azerbaijan?

(10) Did you ever attend a convention of the Alaska Independence Party?

(11) Was your husband a member of the Alaska Independence Party? Why? And why did you address their recent convention given their secessionist views?

(12) Do you believe in converting gays through prayer?

(13) Why were you in attendance at a church where the leader of Jews for Jesus excused bombings against Israelis because they had yet to accept Jesus?

(14) Why did you not walk out or protest? Do you believe this to be true?

(15) Seriously, what's up with you and cats? Are you going to get Bill Frist a cabinet position?

(16) How'd you get that "per diem" money for staying home in your employment contract with Alaska? I've got to get that clause in my next contract. I'd like to bill ABC for those times when I'm not working but sleeping. In fact, I'm sleeping through this interview right now, ka-ching!

(17) When you were Mayor of Wasilla, did your town charge rape victims for their own forensic examinations? WTF?

-Prodigal Son

I guess this is the inevitable result of the war on science and reason

"If you destroy the entire world, I'll kill you."



spacedark

Into the Lion's Den

So when, if ever, will we see McCain on Olbermann? He can't even handle the softballs Larry King throws at guests.

What A Mess

U.S. Nears Rescue Plan For Fannie And Freddie

Meet the new election...

...same as the old election:.

Just . . . Plain . . . Horrible

WARNING: That is the disgraceful 9-11 "tribute" film, shown before Johnnie McShame's speech. It was graphic, it was gut-wrenching, and unbelievably . . . the crowd of Rethugs at the convention cheered and clapped afterward. Cheered and clapped at the dying of our bretheren . . .

Is it pathological? A film showing people choosing to jump to their deaths rather than burn to death . . . is now somehow a patriotic high five? USA! USA! USA!

I'm just saying, it should have followed by a moment of silence. I think the Rethugs crossed the line.

Am I wrong?

-Prodigal Son

maybe I just don't get it because I'm an elitist

From Joe Klein's analysis of One Tough Grandpa's speech last night:

In the end, the strongest aspect of the speech may have been the awkwardness of the delivery.

What, if anything, does this comment say about Republicans?
What, if anything, does it say about the media?
What, if anything, does it say about Joe Klein?

What is Klein saying about America? Post-W, have we truly reached the point at which one must prove one's ineptness to be elected?

spacedark

ACME -- Stamping Out Trolls For Nearly Twenty Years

After our last piece on trolls (“Trolling for Troll Tolls”) there were a number of complaints. Well, two actually. One was received from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Trolls calling for swifter, more reliable euthanasia methods than gravity and heavy objects. The second was from the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts demanding to know where its William Morris III Steinway got to. More on this much, much later.

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Special Needs Parents, Palin is lying.

Palin said in her speech that parents with special needs kids now have an advocate. Is she f**kin' kidding? She is a RETHUG! Can anyone name me ONE RETHUG who has NOT cut funding and help for these folks, or cheered on privitization?

And what exactly has this "executive" who as mayor of a half frozen hamlet whose "experience" was dealing with the tax abatement for the new wal-mart and the occasional walrus attack, EVER DONE to help special needs families? Name me one example!

You can't. Programs to help families in this tough position cost money, and that might mean a tax.

Don't . . . trust . . . Rethugs . . . ever! Especially with the lives of those most fragile members of society. Most conservatives wear their religion on their sleeves for easy covering up when the truth becomes inconvenient.

-Prodigal Son

The Woman from Fargo . . . errr . . . Wasilla

Hypocrisy much rethugs?

Watching Palin's speech last night, seriously, I kept waiting for the reference to the woodchippah, LOL.

Some thoughts after sleeping on it:

1. Palin had the hometown accent down, she was folksy and homespun, and has mommy credentials out the wazooo. But we have already dealt with one Gov you would like to have a beer with, and that did not work out so well. Change anyone?

2. She can throw the red meat well, and use the dog whistle, that rethugs pavlovianly respond to. (Fear, Hate, Greed).

3. She is no victim of the liberal media elite, which the RNC whiners had been promoting all week. The gloves can come off now.

4. It was nasty, and condescending, and now we know what Biden will face in the debates. Good.

5. She is an easily checked liar:

I suspended the state fuel tax, and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. NOPE.

I told the Congress “thanks, but no thanks,” for that Bridge to Nowhere. Errmm . . . NO.

If our state wanted a bridge, we’d build it ourselves. When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged - directly to the people of Alaska. Not so much. . .

Hmmmm . . . no one is watching the convention, and even the hardliners think she is a lightweight. How does the speech change this?

-Prodigal Son

Palin Worries

All kidding aside, I think John Amato has it right:

"So, the set up will be complete after she gives her speech tonight. With all the hoopla about her views and family, the pundits have already been saying that McCain bet the farm, or ranch or whatever by naming her to the ticket. Well, I expect her speech to be a big hit with the crowd and the punditry class will all swoon over it. All she has to do is be likable (no policy required) and she will be. Case closed.

McCain’s Media will blame the evil libruls for attacking her even though that’s not the case and will praise her performance as the game changer for McCain. She’ll become the “it” girl after tomorrow just long enough to make it through the election, just wait and see."

We have the worst media in the western world, will they do their jobs after tonight? We KNOW the AGR will be fawning. The Pope is also Catholic.

-Prodigal Son

Nazi-Con 2008: Substance-Free, Day Deuce

UPDATE: Chimpy compares liberals to Vietnam torturers, and BTW, did you know that McSame was a P.O.W.? Take a shot!

Anyone know if Darth Cheney is going to speechify?

-PS


Fred Thompson has sewn up the hound dog vote for McShame (and accused Obama of being a proponent of infanticide).

Bush blathered on a big ol' teevee for a whole NINE minutes from the oval office and NOT NOLA. (Isn't he the sitting Pres of their OWN PARTY, just asking)

Lieberman lied about bipartisanship to a partially filled hall of Rethugs, (Partisanship! From Repubs! LOL, that Joe SLAYS ME!)

What now?

Don't expect a discussion of economic issues . . .

And on the Gov. Payback Palin front, McSame lied, Palin was vetted ONE DAY before being announced as Veep candidate, because GOPers threatened a revolt if Lieberman was selected.

Quick question . . . where is all the "Republicans in disarray" chatter from the "liberal media"? If the democrats had f-ed up even half as much, that's ALL we would have heard about 24/7.

This Friday, Obama needs to have a big announcement, and squash any positives that might appear.

-Prodigal Son

Nazi-Con 2008

The rethugs are scheduled to resume their nominating convention tonight, going with their usual themes of "Fear, Hate, Greed". Joe the turncoat will be speaking. Me? If I wanted to hear lying, I can turn on FAUX news.

FUN ACTIVITY: For you college kids, take a shot every time someone says, "P.O.W."! Give up the car keys please, because you will be shit-hammered in 1 hour.

One talking head today said that McShames pick was great because it would make him appear younger . . . so would a sequoya tree.

PALIN VETTING UPDATE:
-She did not actually win Ms. Congeniality in 1984.
-The FBI says they never ran a background check on Governor "personal vendetta" Palin.

Do the rethugs have their Eagleton?

-Prodigal Son

Putting America Last

The photo above is a pic of City Hall in Wasilla, AK. What's the drive-up window for?

Just asking . . .

-Prodigal Son

John Cocstostan, M.D.

10,000 folks bought $7.3 MM in fake degrees from a diploma mill.

"The list includes NASA employee Timothy Francis Gorman, who bought an electrical engineering degree using his e-mail account at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to correspond with the diploma mill, and U.S. Department of Health oncology expert Frank S. Govern, who purchased a doctorate in health care administration.

National Security Agency employees David W. Barden and Barry A. Hester both bought degrees. Hester, who was a computer Web trainer and designer for the NSA with top-secret clearance, paid $1,187 for an information systems and technology degree, the list shows.

Eric Gregory Cole, who was a contract employee for the Central Intelligence Agency, paid $3,801 for a degree in information systems management." (Highlights mine)

A complete list is available. Anyone you know there?

Sarah Palin is not on it, I already checked, LOL . . .

-Prodigal Son

Labor Day

This holiday has really strayed far from it's ideals, but here you go . . .

What have Unions EVER done for you?

Eight-Hour Day
Five-Day Workweek
Health Insurance
Military Leave
Good Pensions
Paid Sick Leave
Higher Wages
Overtime Pay
Job Safety
Paid Holidays
Job Security
Paid Vacations
Family and Medical Leave
Fair Treatment for Women, People of Color & Workers with Disabilities

The free market would have provided these anyway, correct righties?

-Prodigal Son

Gustav

While McSame and his faithful sidekick prance around and play pretend Preznit, using the suffering of our fellow Americans as a campaign backdrop, let's just remember where this a**hat was 3 years ago. Eating birthday cake with Governor moron. 1840 people were about to die.


IMO, 2 things will happen this week . . .


1. The levees fail, NOLA is screwed, and the Repubs are exposed AGAIN as incompetent corrupt scum. And McSame will be front and center.

2. The storm tapers off, and McSame and his "Soul Mate" (not the Cindster!) get free MSM media fawning over his super-duper, scrumpdelicious, ultra-maverickiness. . . or whatever.

If I were Obama, I would have two ads ready this week, one using the pic above if things go terrible in NOLA, and blasting McSame for not using his family jet to evacuate residents. Another ad showing Obama hustling folks onto his campaign jet, and being low key. Seems calculating, I know. Comparing leadership styles is OK.

Thoughts?

-Prodigal Son


OH YEAH, I have a buddy who just finished rebuilding his house in Ocean Springs, MS after fighting the godamn insurance companies for two years. He and his family lived in Hattiesburg off and on during that time. Please keep him and all of the coast in your thoughts.