You’ve Got Some Splainin’ To Do

Douglas Rushkoff has an interesting write-up trying to outline some of the issues with the bailout.

The mortgage and credit crisis wasn’t merely predictable; it was predicted. And not by a market bear or conspiracy theorist, but by the people and institutions responsible. The record number of foreclosures, credit defaults, and, now, institutional collapses is not the result of the churn of random market forces, but rather a series of highly lobbied changes to law, highly promoted ideologies of wealth and home ownership, and monetary policies highly biased toward corporate greed.

He has some other interesting pieces on his site that attempt to explain the current crisis, here.

Banks didn’t really care (because they weren’t holding the bad paper) but the people investing in those “mortgage-backed securities” were slowly getting wise to the fact that many of the borrowers were in over their heads. What to do? The credit industry went ahead and lobbied Washington to change the bankruptcy laws. While corporations could claim bankruptcy and stop paying for their retirees’ health coverage, individuals would no longer be able to claim bankruptcy, and even if they did, they would still owe their creditors the money they borrowed, forever. The credit industry spent over $100 million lobbying lawmakers for the new provisions.

 

Political Buttons We Can Get Behind

 

Ventriloquists For Obama

Democratic Stuff has some of the best campaign buttons ever. BB-Blog has a good round up of some of the highlights.

Banned Books Week

In light of Sarah Palin’s efforts to ban books in Alaska, it seemed like a good idea to mention it is Banned Books Week. 

The American Library Association has some good info on the history of book banning here.

Here is the list of most challenged books this year:

 And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

TTYL by Lauren Myracle

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Who knew, “And Tango Makes Three” is one of my daughter’s favorite books. We read it to her all the time.

Paging Sigmund Freud

More Good News For Obama

ABC/The Washington Post poll:

Who is mainly responsible for the defeat of the financial rescue? Republicans 44, Democrats 21

Do you oppose or favor the bill? Oppose 47, Favor 45

More from the poll here.

Breaking News in NY

Bloomberg Said to Be Ready to Announce Bid for Third Term as Mayor.

more to come…

Jews!

Guess Who’s Not Coming To Dinner

Other Views from The Chicago Sun Times’ Roger Ebert

I do not like you, John McCain. My feeling has nothing to do with issues. It has to do with common courtesy. During the debate, you refused to look Barack Obama in the eye. Indeed, you refused to look at him at all. Even when the two of you shook hands at the start, you used your eyes only to locate his hand, and then gazed past him as you shook it.

What is the better leadership quality: (1) Willingness to listen to your opponent, and keep an open mind? (2) Rigidly ignoring him? Which of the two of you better demonstrated the bipartisan spirit you say you represent? Was there anything he said that you agreed with? Could you have brought yourself to say so?

[Update] This was originally from an article written by Roger Ebert. The link was changed to reflect this.

“Cry me a freaking river”

Rebecca Traister, from Salon, stops us in our tracks before we are tempted to jump on the Sarah Palin Pity Party. I have to admit, when Hillary was getting banged up in the press in New Hampshire, I felt pangs of sympathy. As a women, my heart went out to her for the abuse she was taking for showing emotion. In the company of a group of women. I felt that the press was using her feminity – manifested in her tears in the diner – against her… telling us it was “wrong” and “un-presidential.” Then, her campaign dished out their next lie about Obama, and I was, like, “Screw that.”

I had that moment with Sarah Palin this week. Regardless of my utter distaste for her policies, and my shock at her lack of knowledge of qualifications, this women is getting raked through the coals. Being called “stupid” and a “stewardess”. But then I thought, she did this to herself. She got herself into this mess. Her ambition over-shadowed her intelligence. She is not ready. And no one could have stopped this mess except her. But she said did not blink. She said Yes.

When you treat women as your toys, as gullible and insensate pawns in your Big Fat Presidential Bid — or in Palin’s case, in your Big Fat Chance to Be the First Woman Vice President Thanks to All the Cracks Hillary Put in the Ceiling — I don’t feel bad for you.

When you don’t take your own career and reputation seriously enough to pause before striding onto a national stage and lying about your record of opposing a Bridge to Nowhere or using your special-needs child to garner the support of Americans in need of healthcare reform you don’t support, I don’t feel bad for you.

When you don’t have enough regard for your country or its politics to cram effectively for the test — a test that helps determine whether or not you get to run that country and participate in its politics — I don’t feel bad for you.

When your project is reliant on gaining the support of women whose reproductive rights you would limit, whose access to birth control and sex education you would curtail, whose healthcare options you would decrease, whose civil liberties you would take away and whose children and husbands and brothers (and sisters and daughters and friends) you would send to war in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and wherever else you saw fit without actually understanding international relations, I don’t feel bad for you.

(Thanks, Pablo)

Places Please

Democratic Presidential Nominee, Senator Barack Obama participates in the first presidential debate with Senator McCain at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS on Friday, September 26, 2008. (David Katz/Obama for America)

SNL: Palin Part 2

Click Image Below to View CLIP

Laugh Break

This Thursday, get some popcorn and moonshine and watch the show.

“I have to admit, though, he’s a great debater, and he looks pretty doggone confident, like he’s sure he’s going to win,’’ Ms. Palin, 44, said of Mr. Biden, 65. “But then again, this is the same Senator Biden who said the other day that University of Delaware would trounce the Ohio State Buckeyes. Wrong!”

Andrew Sullivan On The (Lack Of A) Bailout

“The final coda to the Bush years: the socialist bailout of capitalism … fails.”

Why are we in this handbasket and where are we going?!

BAILOUT REJECTED

 

House Votes ‘No,’ 228-205; Stocks Plunge

House Rejects Bailout Package, 228-205; Stocks Plunge

Leaders Fail to Convert Opponents

In a moment of historic drama in the Capitol and on Wall Street, the House of Representatives voted on Monday to reject a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry.

 

CNN Jack Cafferty – Palin is a Joke