1 These people are demented.

2 Mary has a hard choice to make...if she votes FOR on Sat night, she will not be re-elected; if she votes AGAINST, she will. Louisiana is talking about taking down even the Republicans who have in the past supported her! $1M isn't enough for me, and I live here in La. ....I will never see a penny of that money, so it's a waste to be bribed like that.

3

John Larson (D-CT) wants some kind of jobs program.

There is only one thing more dangerous than a member of Congress with a nebulous idea--a member of Congress with a specific idea.

4

 she's a dirty pirate hooker

So...should I open with that when I call?

5

Monkeys on a cupcake.

Racist.

6 What up?

7 What is it with the Saturday night votes all of a sudden?

Ted Kennedy dies and all of a sudden everybody's free then?

8 What's the over/under on Judas Republicans?

9 What's the over/under on Judas Republicans?

I'll call Rudy, he should have a good feel on the spread.

10 What is it with the Saturday night votes all of a sudden?

Plan is so great, so beloved by the citizenry, that it has to be snuck past them in the dead of night.

11 have we started printing bills in color with the little monacled Monopoly guy yet?

12 Friday afternoon document dumps. Saturday night votes.

Transparency, Baybee! Oh, and Change!

Maybe Steele and the GOP could comment on all of this. Like, say, during a series of real filibusters? Or is that too gun-clingingly terroristic and bigoted?

13 Barney Frank (D-CT) want more mortgage loans for people who can't pay them.

Please...we have enough libs in this state to contend with.  We don't need credit for this one.  He's Massachusetts!

14

Bayh. Lincoln.  Landrieu and Nelson.  It'd be nice if they heard from a few million people today.

Meanwhile, my homies hang tough.  Tom Coburn is looking for ways to have the entire bill read on the floor.  Jim Inhofe is looking for ways to have the entire bill read eight times, just because he doesn't want Tom Coburn to get all the spending hawk goodies.

15

DaveinTexas,

I know it was likely a typo, but shouldn't it be "Barney Frank (D-MA)"? Unless the "CT" is an abbreviation for a four letter word beginning and ending with those letters, for a word that fits him pretty well, and something he's never seen.

16 Okie--Coburn and Inhofe are national treasures.  Thank you for sharing them with the rest of us.

(I've half a mind to call Russ Feingold and ask him to vote "no" because the bill as written isn't fascist enough--only way he'd consider voting against it. *spit*)

17 Landrieu is lost.  I vaguely recall two other votes I thought would sink her if she voted D; nope, didn't happen.  Jindal is the only R that has a chance against her in LA, and that's just a chance.

18 oh, yeah, screwed up.

19 Slush Fund Mania!

We've got to protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen!

Harrumph!  Harrumph!



But the 'bailout' funds aren't going to 'bailouts.'  Isn't that interesting.

20 Wrote to Senator Evan Bayh  (D Indiana) earlier this morning to assure him I and many of my like-minded friends would be knocking on as many doors as it took to have him voted out of office next year if he votes for this Health Care monstrosity. I also told him I would not be fooled by his voting one way on cloture and then another on the bill itself.

Just got back a fluff piece from his office ab't how he's going to reduce the national debt - next year. I'm hoping he'll be able to accomplish that at least  before November of next year, since I'm also hoping he'll be history come Nov 4.

21

BURGESS: Glass-Steagall has come up this morning. If I recall, Glass- Steagall was repealed — that bill was signed by Bill Clinton…
GEITHNER: YouÂ’re right about that.
BURGESS: Â… not George Bush.
GEITHNER: YouÂ’re absolutelyÂ…
BURGESS: And I frankly donÂ’t understand. If thatÂ’s such a good protection, this presidentÂ’s been in office for 10 months. WhereÂ’s the signed legislation reinstating Glass-Steagall? WhatÂ…
GEITHNER: Actually, I would not support reinstating Glass-Steagall. And I donÂ’t actually believe that the end of Glass-Steagall played a significant role in the cause of this crisis.

22 nickless@19,

And how. The TARP fun money has been a political crutch since its inception. This Congress keeps passing or trying to pass historically massive spending legislation while trotting out that "reserve" as if it is some magic financing mechanism.

See, America? You don't have to worry about paying for this new federal mandate. Why, we just happen to have a few hundred billion right here waiting to fund it, so, like, don't worry your pretty little heads. We've already got it covered. Plus, we know you suck at math, so the fact that we can say a couple hundred billion from this fund will finance our trillion dollar program is a calculated risk of a statement we're willing to shill.

Rat bastages the Pelosi/Reid Congress.

23  

24 OUR money is just burning a hole in THEIR pockets.

25 They say Lincoln's own polling shows if she votes yes on health care she loses her seat.  If that's really the case there's no way she'll vote for it.

26 Obama's stash is dried up, are you saying there's a TARP stash?

mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm

27

GEITHNER: Actually, I would not support reinstating Glass-Steagall. And I donÂ’t actually believe that the end of Glass-Steagall played a significant role in the cause of this crisis.

He's kidding, right?  The repeal of Glass-Steagall, combined with rock-bottom interest rates by the Fed, the enforcement of the CRA, and making bad loans "a policy" (according to Barney Frank) was all at the heart of the housing bubble.  Hell, the repeal of Glass-Steagall was the damn catalyst for the bubble to begin with in the first place--if they had kept that law and repealed the CRA instead, the chances the housing bubble gets blown up drop dramatically because there's no longer any chance for investment firms to get involved in the credit default swaps and moral hazard of the government backing bad loans (via Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA).

28 The repeal of Glass-Steagall, combined with rock-bottom interest rates by the Fed, the enforcement of the CRA, and making bad loans "a policy"

BS

Glass-Steagall's repeal had NOTHING to do with the current "crisis".  If you want data that prove's it beside actually looking at what happned here, look at what happened in Great Britain. The bottom fell out of their housing market as well and they NEVER had Glass-Steagall.

29

"If her yes is worth a mere 100 million, she's a dirty pirate hooker."

This reminds me of the story that I read once of a fine English Gentleman who approached a noble woman of similar breeding and asked her "Madam, would you sleep with me for $100 million dollars?" to which her reply was "Yes, I would." 

He then proceeded to ask "Would you sleep with me for $100 dollars?" to which she was offended, slapped him, and asked "What kind of woman do you think I am?"

His reply?

"I thought we'd already established what sort of woman you were with your first response.  My second question was merely an attempt to determine your PRICE!"

A high-priced hooker is still a hooker.  No matter what price she sells out her ideals for, even if it were $100 BILLION, a hooker is a hooker.  If votes can be bought and sold, and presumably, ideals along with them, then the person taking part in this is nothing but a hooker, no matter how high the price. 

30 I'm not against stimulus spending, really I am not. I want 600 F-22's, and an American on Mars. What seems to be the holdup here?

31 Hey, I have an idea!  Why not ACTUALLY buy some of those "toxic" assets from the financial companies like the program was actually sold as?

At 50 cents on the dollar, the Treasury could buy up 400 billion worth of "under water" mortgages that they are already on the hook for anyway if they default.  In the meantime they could collect the monthly payments from people who are able to make payments.  And at some point when the mortgage is no longer "under water" they could sell the mortgages back.

Wasn't that what TARP was sold as to begin with?  Why not use it for the purpose it was intended to be for?  So far they have simply used the program to pump money into bank reserves without actually buying the "toxic" assets.

32

Glass-Steagall's repeal had NOTHING to do with the current "crisis". 

Bullshit yourself, Vic.  Glass-Steagall's repeal removed the wall between investment firms and commercial banks, who then exercised moral hazard with the consent of the government and the Fed to blow up the housing bubble to completely unrealistic proportions following the dotcom bust.  These credit default swaps weren't just in American banks, they were swapped with overseas entities as well.

The S & L crisis may have created the concept of to "Too Big to Fail," but Glass-Steagall's repeal actually made the concept a reality by incentivizing banks and investment firms to pump so much made-up "wealth" (really, debt liability) into the system that they could tie in their collapse with the economic collapse of the entire country's financial structure.  And it's not nearly over, because these TBTF banks have been allowed to keep all their toxic crap off their books and supposedly make a "profit" this year (with our taxpayer dollars and debt, no less). 

If you want data that prove's it beside actually looking at what happned here, look at what happened in Great Britain. The bottom fell out of their housing market as well and they NEVER had Glass-Steagall.

Great Britian doesn't have the CRA, either Vic.  The housing bubble wasn't just caused by banks giving loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them--it was also caused by the government encouraging this activity because Greenspan was looking for a way to prop the economy back up in the face of a recession. 

Does it even strike you as odd that you're agreeing with a tax cheat and congenital liar on this issue?

33 "investment forms" did not create the so-called crisis.  A burst of the housing bubble by itself did not cause a single bank failure.

The fact that F&F had taken all the bad loans and bundled them into hidden packages which they sold to "major banks" is what created the crisis.  The ability of those "banks" to over invest in this risky paper was created by AIG issuing insurance on those loans based on faulty risk assumptions.

Repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with it.

34 crosspatch: "...Why not use it for the purpose it was intended to be for?..."

Because that would have required honesty on their part. That's a trait the Donk-controlled Legislative and the Executive do not have. TARP was the terminology, not the actual function, to be used for public consumption only. Public relations writ large.

35

"investment forms" did not create the so-called crisis.  A burst of the housing bubble by itself did not cause a single bank failure.

It's not a "so-called crisis," Vic, it's an actual crisis.  Or don't you think that a 22.3% default/forclosure rate by the FHA, FNM trying to turn their defaulted mortgages into rental units, and rapidly rising delinquincy rates nationwide are that big of a deal? 

And the housing bubble bursting by itself didn't cause a single bank failure?  Are you kidding?  Wachovia's portfolio was dominated by these trash loans--particularly the "pick-a-pay" option they provided--and when the bubble popped they had to be taken over by WF.

The ability of those "banks" to over invest in this risky paper was created by AIG issuing insurance on those loans based on faulty risk assumptions.

Repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with it.

Sorry, but it did.  Glass-Steagall removed the wall between commercial and investment banking, which prompted these firms to speculate in mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps in the Greenspan-induced housing bubble.  Combined with the CRA; low interest rates from the Fed; backing from the FHA, Fannie, and Freddie; and subprime, Alt-A, and OptionArm loans that encouraged rapid turnover and easy credit, and the industry created a toxic brew of overpriced housing based on the fallacious idea that real estate never depreciates.  As long as the housing market kept roaring and people were working (and spending themselves further into debt), no one said a word, but the minute the recession hit and people started defaulting on their mortgages, that's when the shit hit the fan.  AIG was just a symptom of the rot throughout the entire banking industry, rot that still has yet to be cleaned out.

This wasn't simply a lack of regulation--this actual collusion between the Fed, the government, and the financial industry to find another bubble to blow up after the dotcom bubble popped. 

36

We're in debt, and they think there is more to spend, because that's what they budgeted?

I might as well take the Hawaiian vacation because it's in the budget for next year.  The wife is probably being laid off, but the vacation is already in the budget...

Would it be wrong to imagine the deaths of all of Congress from the swine flu as some sort of cosmic payback from a deity with a sense of humor?

37 burberry scarf | CD Keys

38

Thank you very much for putting up this on this page