Daily Archives: September 21, 2008

McCain Campaign Lobbying For Foreign Bank – UBS

If we had a real press in this country, McCain would be losing by 30 points. Get a load of this shit from Josh Marshall at TPM…

John McCain’s top economics advisor, who is widely believed to be his choice for Treasury Secretary, should he win in November, is former Sen. Phil Gramm. As late as last night McCain’s spokesman refused to say Gramm wouldn’t be McCain’s choice for Treasury Secretary.

Gramm is both vice chairman of UBS’s US division and a lobbyist for UBS.

UBS successfully lobbied over the weekend to get in on the big bailout

The New York Times reports this evening that “foreign banks, which were initially excluded from the [Wall Street bailout] plan, lobbied successfully over the weekend to be able to sell the toxic American mortgage debt owned by their American units to the Treasury, getting the same treatment as United States banks.”

The Times further reports that two of the biggest foreign banks in need of such relief are Barclays and UBS.

Anti-Kowalko Push Polling Resumes

I just got this letter from John Kowalko:

One of the things I take most seriously in life is my responsibility and sworn obligation to serve the best interests of the people of Delaware and my constituents in the 25th District. I am therefore recounting some recent events to expose what I honestly believe is an assault on the voters and the integrity of the system. I used to reflect on how fortunate I felt that I wasn’t involved in the negativity and bitterness of New Jersey politics. I am proud to campaign on the issues in Delaware but I fear that some would prefer that we join the mass hysteria of negativity.

I imagine I should feel confident in my reelection bid since my opponent is so bereft of ideas to address the issues actually facing Delawareans that he is continuing to use unscrupulous means to suggest to my constituents “what should” concern them. While I was out walking my District today, (Sunday the 21st) as I’ve been doing steadily for the past four months, trying to get a feel for the concerns of the people and listening to their problems and wonderful ideas, I received a call on my cell phone. This call was similar to others I had received in July regarding what I considered then and now an obscene and offensive practice by the Republican Party, (and in this instance), my opponent. It is the transparently, shameless attempt to influence voters with a series of misleading innuendo and false assumptions, a practice known as push-polling. The caller was a constituent, whose name I will keep confidential, who is a leader in their community. The caller was obviously upset by the tone and tenor of the questions and felt it was a blatant attempt to misrepresentative me and my philosophies in order to wage a negative attack on me.

I point this out for several reasons. First and foremost I find this type of aberrant behavior as betraying the public trust and abusive to the voters and the rights of the voters to be able to make an unbiased, unfiltered and untainted decision as to whom they wish to represent them. Second, and almost as important, I feel that it is a measure of my opponents character that he seems either too lazy or too aloof to knock on the doors of those constituents and ask them what is troubling them and how he could help them. If he believes that he can take for granted the serious issues facing each and every one of us daily and insinuate politics into the consciousness of the populace then he should reconsider his urge to be a public servant. Meeting the voters individually and face-to-face is certainly an arduous and time-consuming task but well worth the effort when the reward is a smile of appreciation and a sincere thank you. To suggest to those very same people that you are concerned with their problems and needs by scurrilous and tainted phone outreaches insults their intelligence and is unconscionable behavior. Complicity in this activity, even condoning such a practice, is shameful and a betrayal of trust. I stand on my record and have made my views and opinions available on my website and in many public forums. I will continue to do that since it is exactly what the public deserves and is entitled to. If my opponent or anyone else would like to have a public debate or discussion on matters that impact the community I will always make myself available. To use deceit and propaganda to shape opinion and obscure reality is the politics of distraction at its worst and the public does not deserve such disregard.

Bad Medicine

Our economy is sick.  George Bush and his team of economic advisors has been working all weekend trying to figure out what is wrong with the patient.  Let’s set aside the fact that George Bush and his team of military and intelligence advisors got virtually everything wrong in Iraq.  Let’s just look at this issue with clear eyes.

The patient is suffering from malaise, panic and weakness in the limbs.  There have certainly been mistakes in the treatment in the past.  The patient has become bloated due to a lack of self-control and is now feeling the effects of mistreatment.

We have found the underlying cause of the issue, a broken system without the necessary checks on the banks and other financial institutions.  Surely there are a bunch of people walking around with loans that they aren’t going to be able to pay, but lets face it, those people are less sophisticated than the Phd financial analysts that build risk profiles to determine who can afford a loan.

Instead of attacking the underlying cause here, the Bush administration has decided to address the symptoms.  But not all of the symptoms.  Only the well-heeled symptoms.  The banks (the ones that shoulda known better) are going to get treatment.  Unfortunately, homeowners are not going to get any support here.

So if you live in a nice 5 bedroom apartment on Park Ave. (overlooking the park) with a doorman and a driver, you are going to have to work a few late nights to make sure that your people can get the right loans transfered over to the government as fast as you can.

If you are a homeowner that makes $30,000 a year and your wife just had a baby (so she cannot work for a few months), well, that really nice 3 bedroom home in Brookside is going to be hard to keep up on, so I hope your car isn’t too cramped with all three of you in it.

Oh, and we don’t actually know if this is going to work.  So I hope the guy in Brookside doesn’t work in some business affected by a bad economy.

I was really sick once.  I had a fever of 107 for 3 days.  It was caused by an infection just under the skin on my right leg.  The hospital really wanted my fever to break (as did I), but the solution to my issue wasn’t putting me in a cold shower or giving me Tylenol, they had to treat the infection.  It wasn’t easy, fun or quick, but I got better once they had addressed the underlying cause.  I feel like the Bush team is kicking this damned issue down the road for 4 months.  I hope someone has the guts to stop them from giving us Tylenol.

Ron Williams Phones It In

This could be a continuing series, I’m thinking.

Today, Williams tells us what we already know, that Joe Biden is well within his rights to run for both his VP and Senate seats. Well, yes. And?

He goes on not to take a position on whether this is a healthy electoral situation (it sure is rare, but what does it mean for voters?), but to note that this is an opportunity for the Biden “haters” (he says this) to get their whine on that Biden “hasn’t done anything for the state since he’s been in office and now he wants his job back without campaigning.” These same whiners would have issues with the appropriations that specifically get money back to the state — they are called earmarks — but the whiners are largely interested in hearing themselves whine.

Casting themselves as victims is a key repub tactic, especially going up against well liked and well funded Dems in places where there is a Dem advantage. Victimology is good for free media, which the local R’s (with their talk show candidate) probably need. What they miss, though, is that even if Biden were not on the Presidential ticket, he would still be at the top of the Delaware ticket and still wouldn’t have to campaign much to beat O’Donnell. What they also miss is that whining has a limited shelf life — at some point the only thing people know is that you are always complaining and ever talking about what you’ll do in office.

So if O’Donnell thinks she has a chance at beating Biden, she’ll have to do it the old fashioned way — by getting out there to get more votes than he does. She should note that her party is saving the bulk of their special pleadings this year for Sarah Palin and I don’t think that Delawareans buy the victimology anyway.

QOD

Many of you are aware that there is no longer a 5 and 15 yard penalty for facemasks in the NFL. There are only 15 yard penalties now.

Won’t this result in more violent facemasks now?

The upside of sexism

Joe Biden will have to debate Sarah Palin with one arm tied behind his back because… well, she’s a girl. The New York Times has the story.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

Are you kidding me? Has this ever happened before? Can you imagine these rules being put in place when Dan Quayle debated Lloyd Bentsen? Of course not. Can you imagine them changing the rules of this debate if Sarah Palin was Sam Palin? Again, of course not. Why? Because it would be viewed as a sign of weakness. Know what? It is a sign of weakness.

So the next time a man claims that a woman is not capable of being President, or strong enough to deal with the demands of a job, or doesn’t deserve equal pay for equal work they’ll have evidence to back up their claim.

Tales of the Economic Fallout

Earlier in the week, Duffy asked to be pointed to some writing that might be in favor of or justify the current bailouts. I haven’t read anything other than fairly glib variations on the “too big to fail” theme, but here is some reading (and listening) of how we got here and some thinking that I had not heard previously:

The NYT Freakonomics blog has a very cogent history of recent events.

Wednesday, Fresh Air had a long interview with Michael Greenberger who explains in clear and riveting detail the shadow economy that is being protected by the current actions of the Fed. Do yourself a favor and listen to all 40, 45 minutes of this. (You can get this as a podcast from iTunes, too, for the next week or 10 days) I highly recommend this — Greenberger is not all that pessimistic about the economy, but he is critical of the management and policies that got us here. You may or may not agree with his diagnosis, but his description of the current state of the board is completely vital.
Continue reading →