Missing The Point

Now that the Democrats have won, the "Stop picking on Bush!" movement from the Sensible Centrists of the Village is now picking up steam. The explanation for 8 years of the worst President ever? Why, it's not his fault at all: Bush was just really unlucky.

But like so many presidents before him, Bush's reputation could change with time.

Harvard University political history scholar Barbara Kellerman said when President-elect Barack Obama takes over in January, people may view Bush in a new light.

"I think it's possible when people have stopped being as angry at the Bush administration as they are now ... that they will realize that some of this is just ... the luck of the draw."

Kellerman, author of the book "Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters," noted that Bush has not had luck on his side for the past eight years.

"He's [Bush] has been a quite unlucky president. Certain things happened on his watch that most people don't have to deal with -- a 9/11, a [Hurricane] Katrina, the financial crisis, being three obvious examples," she said.

"And yet they happened on his watch. He is being blamed," she said.

Is she angling for a job at the Bush Presidential Library or what?

Put aside the very real evidence that Bush helped bring about 9/11 and the financial crisis we're currently stuck in. Even if you consider them to be unlucky disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the reason he's going down as the Worst President Ever(tm) is strictly due to his reactions to these events -- the conscious choices he made and did not make -- that made every one of these problems orders of magnitude worse. His choices were not "bad luck". They were bad choices.

To blame the consequences of Bush's bad choices and the outcome of these events on luck is intellectually dishonest and pretty goddamn stupid. Bush's bad choices in the financial crisis are still being determined, but his reaction to Katrina was cold and calculated neglect designed to make Louisiana the red state it is today, minus a few hundred thousand black faces. And 9/11? His reaction was to invade the wrong country and embroil us in two ridiculous wars, all while failing to find the man responsible and spending $3 trillion, thousand of American soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan lives to do it. There was no luck involved there.

But it's fun to throw all that aside and feel sorry for Bush, apparently. No folks, he earned the epithet as the Worst President Ever...the only thing he ever earned in his life.

Post-Election Winners And Losers

First, The Winners:

1. The Village: They remember what it was like to have some hick Democrat from Arkansas try to run DC rather then them. They will dust off the Clinton playbook and apply it to Obama, which will suit...

2. Hillary: just fine. Ask Ted Kennedy about a 40-year dream deferred. Not our Hillary. She's going to be setting herself up as the Sensible Centrist Alternative to Obama from day one. You think she just forgot Plan 2012? She knows the drill, as do...

3. El Rushbo, Drudge And Friends: FOX just became the snappy counter culture freedom fighters to Obama's Scary Nubian Army. They will be mobilizing big time. These folks made their bones off trying to destroy Clinton: Rush, Hannity, Savage, Tweety and Morning Joe, and now the Right Blogosphere will back them up to rule the Village and tell them how to attack. The war is on for these guys and they couldn't be happier about it, and their The One?

4. Sister Sarah Palin: Palin's '08 VP speech to them was Obama's '04 DNC speech to us. She's going to be with us a long, long time, kids, and she's leading the Purge of the Moderates. She will galvanize the New GOP as the Brave Resistance to Obama's tyranny and oppression. You thought the GOP was a bunch of racist assholes before? You ain't seen nothing yet.

On the other side are The Losers:

1. John Sidney McLoser III: One has to die so that the rest may live. Bob Dole'd out of the GOP and politics, he may not even serve out his Senate term. Perhaps he can vacation with...

2. Dubya Also Kryptonite to the new GOP. He'll get sick of the Democratic pity shown to him, regarding him as a horse that needs to be put down. The rest of DC will stop returning his calls and tell him to get the hell out and take McLoser with him. Will probably end up doing interviews with...

3. Keith Olbermann Yes, I'm listing him as a loser. He's got nothing to do now: Stewart and Colbert are funnier, Rachel Maddow is much smarter, and without Bush to scream at he's got two choices: Press Mouthpiece of the Obama Administration or attack him from the Left. The former will kill his ratings, the latter he doesn't have the temperament for, and either way he risks descending into self-parody. (Some say "too late!") But the biggest loser may be...

4. Progressives We'd better figure out damn fast what Obama's real plans are now that he's in charge, or we'll get hung out to dry in a New York Minute should Obama decide to play the DC Dems favorite game: Triangulation! White House Edition. The Big Dog left Progressives to die and the end result was impeachment followed by Dubya. History's given us a rare second chance...but it's given a lot of folks a second chance to stop us.

Time to go to work. Frame the newspaper, enjoy your drink, then dig in. The real fight starts now.

Bring Me His Head On Dry Ice

Wow.



(h/t Steven D at the Frog Pond)

Just think on this. We had a President who was, in effect, an unaccountable warlord, ordering the decapitation of his enemies. The "leader of the free world" was a man every bit as barbaric as the worst Islamic jihadist. And McCain would continue those same policies which Bush put in place. He jokes about bombing Iran, as if the murder of innocent Iranian civilians would be not only an instance of acceptable, "collateral damage" but the height of hilarity.

The Republicans chose George Bush. And they chose John McCain to continue what Bush started. McCain, a so-called man of "honor" who has sullied his reputation forever by running an even nastier negative ad hominem attack campaign against his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, than Bush and Karl Rove ran against John Kerry in 2004. I cannot imagine a more disgraceful act on Tuesday than to cast your ballot for John McCain, the nominee of a party who, while they controlled Congress, enabled the most corrupt, the most power mad, and the most barbaric President in our history.

As he says, this illustrates nicely why the current batch of neocons can never be allowed near the reins of power again. Ever.

Helpful Bush Is Helpful

With the world financial crisis looming large over everyone, Preznitman decides to be Presidential again and will hold a world financial summit to solve the problem...and if that doesn't help, he'll hold...MORE MEETINGS!

President Bush announced Saturday that he will host the first of what could be several summits of world leaders to discuss the global response to the financial crisis.

"It is essential that we work together because we're in this crisis together," Bush said at Camp David, Maryland, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso.

"Together we will work to modernize our financial systems," Bush said. "We must resist the temptation of financial isolationism."

Bush said the summit would include developed and developing nations from around the world.

No date was set, though a White House statement said the gathering would be held in the United States "soon after" the November 4 general election.

Translation: "This problem is potentially catastrophic, but not catastrophic enough for me to do anything about it for at least three weeks, because every time I'm in the news, John McSame loses 2 points in the polls."

Do you think if Obama wins, Bush will invite Obama or any of his economic team to these summits?

I wouldn't hold your breath on that.

Your Liberal CNN

...gives us former Bush administration press flack and Moonie Times hack Tara Wall (Of Denial) to tell us 20 reasons why Obama is just like Bush, and therefore McSame should now attack Obama on that point, "point" in this case being stuff completely made up and so tortured not even the McSame camp is buying it, including such gems as these:

Abstinence: Bush expanded community-based abstinence education during his term, including a $28 million budget increase for 2009 in an effort to "Teach both abstinence and contraception to teens." Obama concurred in April when he said: "We want to make sure that, even as we are teaching responsible sexuality and we are teaching abstinence to children, that we are also making sure that they've got enough understanding about contraception."

Yes, Bush's efforts for only federally funding abstinence-only sex ed for states is exactly the same as Obama's position as stated above! Errm, wait...what about this:

Economics: Obama told reporters that he agreed with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Bush's bailout package, then voted for the $700 billion plan. And despite routinely criticizing "the Bush tax cuts," Obama is now offering tax cuts of his own (although only for the 95 percent of taxpayers earning less than $250,000 a year). What a concept!

Obama wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans and give that money instead to the rest of Americans in the form of tax relief. Yes, many American voters will be convinced that Obama's economic plan announced today is just really more of the same Bush bromides...umm...but...

Faith-based initiatives/fatherhood: Bush is well known for his commitment to the faith-based community -- with initiatives for the poor and on fatherhood -- and he expanded the ability to allow faith-based providers a seat at the funding table. Obama, who has railed against Bush's efforts, has still found a way to embrace them, saying he would "expand" faith-based initiatives. He used his Father's Day speech to echo the president's Fatherhood Initiative.

Only the difference is Obama wants to increase oversight of these organizations, whereas Bush was using them as get out the vote operations and kickbacks to the religious right. Also, being a Christian and a father makes Obama just like Bush, so clearly McSame who is not a Christian and a father...oh wait, he is...hmm...

Global AIDS: Obama has said the U.S. must "lead the global fight against the AIDS virus." And earlier this year, he encouraged lawmakers to "Use whatever works with AIDS, including teaching abstinence." Obama has given Bush kudos for his efforts to combat global AIDS and the record amount of funding ($15 billion over 5 years) the president has earmarked for the fight. Obama said in September, "I think President Bush -- and many of you here today -- have shown real leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS."

OH MY GOD, OBAMA ADMIRED BUSH FIGHTING HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA! That would explain the calls at McSame rallies of "Traitor!" and "Kill him!" Such horrible socialism, unlike we would ever see in America.

Health care: While they don't share similar views on universal health care coverage, Bush and Obama agree that the problem with health care is "about affordability" and there is a need to address minority health concerns with more coverage and targeting. That is why Bush expanded community health care centers, covering the uninsured and targeting urban areas, to the tune of $1.5 billion for 1,200 centers "coast to coast."

SOCIALIST! BUSH IS A SOCIALIST! I KNEW IT! I can't believe she's talking about Bush and his HIDEOUS GUILT-RIDDEN COMPASSION FOR HUMANS. God, McSame should attack on that point RIGHT NOW.

Minority homeownership: Obama adopted the Congressional Black Caucus principles "to increase minority homeownership" as it is "one of the best wealth-creation vehicles for minority families." These principles were developed as part of Bush's vision to expand minority homeownership to 5.5 million new homeowners by 2010. "Across our nation, every citizen, regardless of race, creed, color or place of birth, should have the opportunity to become a homeowner," Bush said.

SOCIALIST! GOVERNMENT HAS NO PLACE IN THE FREE MARKET (unless the free market is crashing out and bleeding all over the place and needs trillions of dollars in fiat money to fix like a junkie downing a gallon of methadone but that's perfectly acceptable, because we can't AFFORD SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE! HARRY AND LOUISE! HARRY AND LOUISE! CONTRACT WITH AMERICA!

National security: Obama voted yes on preauthorizing the much ballyhooed Patriot Act, sought by the Bush administration.

Aha! Obama is weak on national sec...wait, what? I thought he was a Muslim plant and...HE HATES CIVIL LIBERTIES AND...wait, what, McSame voted for it too? Umm...MIDDLE NAME HUSSEIN!

So, although he has been ranked as the most liberal senator by the National Journal and obviously hasn't voted with Bush as often as Sen. McCain has -- based on his voting "record" -- Obama's "rhetoric" still sounds a lot like, well, Bush. McCain might want to take that into account the next time Obama talks about another Bush term.

Oh yeah, I'm sure McSame will be able to pivot and attack Obama from the left, like the maverick he is.

After all, Obama has a Y chromosome...

Just. Like. Bush.

Delusions Of Only Being Moderately Horrible

You really do have to admire the sheer ability of Preznitman to deny reality to the point where he honestly believes he did us a favor these last eight years.

George W. Bush began his presidency with the worst terrorist attack on American soil and he is ending it with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. In between, he confronted a hurricane that nearly wiped New Orleans off the map as his administration showed ineptitude in its response.

Now, as he spends his last months in office trying to avert a global economic collapse, Mr. Bush has been telling people privately that it’s a good thing he’s in charge.

Are you shittin' me? This man is the worst President in the history of the country, and he's actually believing we're grateful for the last eight years to him.

“He said that if it was going to happen at all, he was glad it was happening under his presidency, because he had a good group of people in D.C. working for him,” Dru Van Steenberg, one of several small-business owners who met with Mr. Bush in San Antonio earlier this week. The president expressed the same sentiment, others said, during a similar private session in Chantilly, Va., the next day.

“He said that whoever was going to take over in January was going to have a huge crisis on their hands the day they come into office,” Ms. Van Steenberg added. “He thought by this happening now, that perhaps everyone could see signs of improvement before the next president comes into office.”

Insanity. Pure insanity. Bush really does believe history will see him as some sort of saint with a dirty halo, a man who led the country through the "rough shoals of fate" ala Gerald Ford or something, and that he will be absolved by historians decades from now as a visionary or great unifying statesman.

Our President is an insane lunatic suffering from nearly sociopathic levels of delusion. His complete lack of leadership and his blatant refusal to act on some of American history's most turbulent events has directly contributed to the state we're in right now: facing a global catastrophe.

He will be reviled by a generation who will teach their own children to revile him as well. He deserves no less. He should actually appear on the currency of this country in the future with the caption "Never Again."

Never Again. Two words that we must all take to heart now, for it is truly too late. Our standard of living will drop precipitously soon. With clear eyes, sharp mind, and a heavy heart, we must find a way out together now.

I fear it will be a brutally long journey.

George W. Hoover

Preznitman spoke this morning from the Rose Garden, flanked by the G-7 finance ministers. His statement? "We'll fix this! You can count on us!"

President Bush on Saturday once again tried to reassure a nervous public that world leaders were working together to address what is unfolding as the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.

"We recognize that the turmoil in the financial markets is affecting all our citizens," Bush said, standing in front of financial ministers from the world's top economies gathering in the nation's capital. "All of us recognize this is a serious global crisis that requires a serious global response for the good of our people."

The president did not announce any new actions to stem the financial panic gripping the world, but reiterated measures world leaders are taking to strengthen financial systems.

Those measures will not take effect in time, and by the time they do take effect, they will be too late to do any good. The newest pointless rule proposal by the SEC? A three day ban on a short selling for any stock that drops by 20% in a day. That's like passing a leaf burning ban ordinance two weeks after a wildfire has burned down city hall.

All signs are pointing straight down. Even Jim "Mad Money" Cramer is talking about the honest preparations for 1929 all over again. Six weeks ago of course Cramer said that the "rally is real" and that the WSJ's crazy article that said stock markets wouldn't recover until next year was "totally overblown" negativity. Now, Cramer is actually right about the same percentage of the time as a broken grandfather clock is at telling the time, but the damage is still done and more damage is coming as a result: the systemic, structural basis of the global economy is collapsing.

Idiots. All of them. I've been warning about this for nine months now. People a lot better at this then I am have been warning about this for several years now and some before that have been warning us since 2000 or so that our economy was untenable. Before Roubini there was Libertarian economist Gary North, who said this in 2002:

This is the threat the world faces today. Central banks are in control of money. They have addicted the whole world to massive debt, ever more complex. Any slowdown in the inflation of the money supply threatens the solvency of the entire economy. Ludwig von Mises warned against this ninety years ago, in his Theory of Money and Credit (1912). He warned that the government's refusal to call a halt to monetary inflation – its return to credit-money creation – would eventually destroy the currency. He called this the crack-up boom. In the meantime, we would get endless boom-bust cycles, he said. So we have.

Let me repeat the journalist's warning about buying shares of bankrupt firms: "Gambling involves much hope, little thought and leaves you with the irrepressible urge to repeat your mistakes." But what happens when bad accounting practices, complex debt, and endless monetary expansion persuade investors to buy what are in effect bankrupt companies – companies that are kept afloat only by new injections of bank credit money? The central bankers dare not stop the flow of money. And so the leverage game goes on and on. We are riding the tiger, a tiger of endless debt and capitalized future income streams: derivatives.

And as Gary North pointed out, Austrian Economist Ludwig von Mises warned the world of the problems of central banks and debt long before the Great Depression. He was ignored then. He was ignored for a very long time by most folks.

I honestly thought somebody was going to heed those warnings that had the power to DO something about it. Me, I just made the choice to not get a credit card...still the best choice I made in my life so far.

But it's all coming down around us now. The warnings were not heeded. The perfect storm of willful ignorance, greed, neglect, deregulation, credit addiction and global scale has turned this month into the end of an era.

George W. Hoover, the worst Preznitman the world has ever seen.

Global No Confidence Vote: Bush Boom Kaboom

October 9 is a very important date in the recent history of the Bush Economy.

On October 9, 2002, the Dow hit its lowest point so far during the President's two terms: 7,286.27.

On October 9, 2007, the Dow hit its highest point in the Bush Presidency: 14,164.53.

Stocks drifted higher through the morning, flattened out in the early afternoon and then began to rise as investors digested the minutes from the Sept. 18 Fed meeting, released at around 2:00 p.m. ET.

"The market had a desire to keep going up and there was nothing in the minutes to prevent it," said Paul Mendelsohn, president and chief investment officer at Windham Financial Services.

Mendelsohn said that investors were a little cautious leading into the minutes but once they saw that there was nothing particularly surprising in the minutes, they redoubled their efforts to move stocks higher.

The Dow and S&P 500 carving out fresh all-time highs will give the stock market more ammunition in the short term, he said, provided that the earnings don't derail the momentum.

Investors already know that third-quarter earnings growth will be at the slowest pace in more than five years. But outside of the financial and homebuilding sectors, there may be expectations for results to beat, particularly in the case of multi-national companies that should benefit from the weak dollar, Mendelsohn said.

The period is called the "Bush Boom", the greatest economic story ever told if you ask Sean Hannity or Larry Kudlow. (You know, despite Bill Clinton taking the Dow from 3,500 to 10,500 during the course of his Presidency, tripling its value.)

Today, one year later after the Bush Boom, we have the Bush Kaboom. Today, October 9, 2008, the Dow closed at 8579.19...a loss of 39.4% in one year.

In the five years of the Bush Boom, the Dow gained 6878 points.

In the year since, we've given 5585 of those points back.

By January 20, 2009 I'm betting 7286.27 would be a really great level for the Dow to be at. I'm convinced we may be looking at Bush ending where Bill Clinton started on January 20, 1993...

3241.95.

We've lost over 2500 points in just 9 trading days...37% of the Bush Boom has vanished in the space of two weeks. We'd set a new low in Bushonomics sometime next week.

At that pace the Dow is gone well before January. Hell, it doesn't even make it to December.

The credit markets are still clogged. The housing market is still in freefall. The derivatives are still crushing the lifeblood out of companies. The cardiac arrest is now global.

The Great Reset Button has been hit. Things are accelerating now at a pace that even my wildest nightmares couldn't birth.

Tomorrow's G7 meeting is the last stand of the Alamo. Whatever comes out of this meeting is the world's last bullet in the gun.

This weekend's G7 finance ministers meeting will focus discussion on the current market turmoil as 'global phenomena,' Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs David McCormick said today.

'We are all affected by it, and strengthened international collaboration is needed now more than ever to find collective solutions to achieve stable and efficient financial markets and restore the health of the world economy,' McCormick said today in a pre-meeting press conference.

McCormick noted that he and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been in regular contact with the G7 and other international counterparts, but Friday's meeting 'will provide us with a timely opportunity to further strengthen our collaboration.'

The Undersecretary said that the US will not seek a 'one size fits all' global approach dealing with the current economic crisis, but would instead favor a framework in how to address economic strengthening. McCormick said that inflation is something the finance ministers will be 'mindful of' in their discussions this weekend, but is unlikely to be the focus as it was in their last meeting.

Don't fool yourselves. Inflation is very much on the minds of these ministers. They are wondering just how much hyperinflation it will take to "save" the global economy. That's the last magic bullet.

And should that magic bullet fail, as every other bullet has failed, then we get front row seats to the end. Even if it succeeds...we still get front row seats to the end.

The end is the final Bush/Cheney October Surprise. What does it entail? Who knows? My nightmares aren't talking much these days...they're too busy watching their 401(k)s become 911(doa)s. But any way you slice it the GOP is across the board dead. All the power Bush and Cheney have taken for themselves will be given to Barry and Joe in a matter of months.

Or at least, that's the plan on paper. The reality...well the last 3 weeks shows that reality can hit a snag every now and then.

Given what this President and Vice President have done in the last 8 years, do you honestly think they will sit back and allow John McSame to lose this election?

Do you think there will even BE an election? I'm not sure we won't be under martial law by then.

The next 3 weeks is the end of one story.

Who will write the next one? I don't know. I don't think it will be Obama, but I have hope.

But whatever that story will be, it will be a horror tale that will make your soul curdle and your blood boil. Whoever gets to write it, the poor miserable schmucks in the tale will be us. We will be hurting. The only question is how long and how deep it will be...a two or three year vicious recession and a lesson learned, a generation humbled...or a ten-year global depression and the resource wars that will come with it...or something in between. I don't know.

But be prepared. This time, I mean it. Be prepared...for anything. We're in uncharted parts of the map, folks. Tectonic plates are moving in our history. The new order that emerges from this will not be the same as what we have lived with so far. America will be radically different...and soon. Those standing near the edges will get smashed.

A wise man knows that the Chinese symbol for crisis contains the symbol for opportunity.

An even wiser man once said that "any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

Be prepared. Have a towel on hand. Things will get messy shortly.

Kaboom!

Cross-posted at the Frog Pond.

I'm A Winner, I Can Feel It

(h/t Atrios) Preznitman hits the 25% mark on the way down to WORST PREZNITMAN EVAR award to be given out on January 21.



It's like golf. Low score wins.

Job Crunch Too

We lost a staggering 159,000 jobs in September.

Employers made deeper cuts in their payrolls in September, according to the Labor Department's monthly jobs report, as the economy experienced the biggest drop in jobs in more than five years.

There was a net loss of 159,000 jobs in September, the ninth straight month the U.S. economy has lost jobs. The August job loss was revised to 73,000 jobs, taking year-to-date job losses to 760,000.

The unemployment rate remained at 6.1%, the same level as August and in line with economists' forecast.

We're on pace to now lose a million jobs by January 1, folks. That's not good. Since Bush took office, America has lost over 2 million jobs in eight years, and will most likely lose another 400k or so before 2009. Keep telling yourself that Obama/Biden are going to kill jobs, as Sarah Palin shrilly warned last night. It's the Republicans that have cost us jobs. Those are facts.

Stocks are up this morning erasing most of yesterday's losses because people figure the horrendous jobs numbers are good for making the House pass UberBailout Mark II. Should the bill go to a vote and pass today, it could be a banner day in the market.

Right until the next 400 point loss.

Four Scenarios

There are basically four outcomes for Uberbailout as far as Obama and McSame are concerned, I list them in order of likely occurance.

1) Both vote for it. This favors McSame, as it takes away any attacks Obama can make on the economy. It becomes more or less impossible at that point for Obama to go after McSame on the Wall Street mess after voting to give $700 billion to Wall Street. Even if the Democrats finagle the deal down to $150 billion or whatever, it's still UberBailout and the voters will hate it across the board. It will basically arrest Obama's momentum cold, which is what McSame badly needs right now in order to have any chance of winning.

Evidence for: Wall Street lobbyists and Preznitman have made it clear this needs to pass, and the Dems fold like lawn chairs when it comes to anything tough.
Evidence against: Obama is smarter than this, but still badly outnumbered.

2) Both vote against it but it passes anyway. This favors Obama for the same reason both for it favors McSame, it preserves the current status quo of the last week: Obama keeps on kicking McSame's ass on the economy and especially if the UberBailout passes it turns into "Throw the bums out".

Evidence for: Obama and McSame mutually benefit, as does Wall Street.
Evidence against: Congressional Dems and Bush do not. I doubt they will throw themselves on the pyre for bipartisan unity, and the whole deal could come completely apart, pissing off Wall Street. That's something that just won't happen. Wall Street lobbyists aren't going to take the risk, and neither are Congressional members on either side of the aisle.

3) One votes for, the other against. Political suicide and the end of the election for whoever does, the White House for whoever doesn't.

Evidence for: If either side wants to throw the towel in, this is how to do it. Also, if either side really DOES have some absolutely voodoo deadly evidence on the other, this is the honorable way out to fall on your sword for the country. The loser goes down with the bill, the winner gets to vote against it, and our President is decided five weeks ahead of time.
Evidence against: Politicians never play to lose at this level, but still, I have this higher than Option 4 for a reason.

4) The UberBailout Deal Blows Up. No bill is passed and Congress goes home. The taxpayer is spared...for now. McSame goes all MAVERICK and refuses to vote for it, Obama refuses to commit political suicide as outlined in Option #3 and the entire deal falls apart.

Evidence for: Anybody who votes for this thing is in serious danger of losing their job in November, and hey, the markets are still gonna be there. Plus, McSame is still crazy.
Evidence against: Wall Street will financially castrate everybody they can find and say that Congress left 'em no choice. The news is full of stories at this hour that a deal has more or less been reached. The economy really does do the Jenga tower in an earthquake thing and a much uglier bill has to be passed in January, or Bush summons everybody in December to pass Super Hyper UberBailout Champion Edition: The World Warriors or something. Tent cities, riots, martial law...you know, all the things I'd like to see avoided on general principle.

So, in conclusion: Yeah, I see option 1 there as most likely, which is McSame Plan B in action, but the actions the McSame campaign took this week will of course require them to do something else completely batshit crazy in a couple of weeks once Obama starts regaining the lead.

Then again...McSame is crazy. Logic may not have anything to do with it.

Bush Incites Global Financial Panic

...should be tomorrow's headlines. As I called earlier, Bush's speech was completely over the top.

"Our entire economy is in danger," Bush said, urging Congress to take quick action and outlining his rationale for the bailout.

Failing to pass a rescue plan, Bush said, would create the risk of a "long and painful recession" -- meaning more foreclosures, lost jobs, business failures, stock losses and difficulty getting loans.

"I'm a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to avoid government intervention," Bush said. "These are not normal circumstances. The economy is not functioning properly. ... Without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic."

What sitting President utters words like that? Most importantly how and why did Bush and the GOP let the situation get this bad in the first place?

The true panic here is in the McSame camp. They are out of their minds right now. They are seeing the end of their run six weeks before the election.

The Plan Falls Apart, Time For New Even Worse Plan

The GOP Plan on the UberBailout is coming undone. The GOP is fleeing from this bill as fast as they can scramble. Nobody wants to pass this thing especially in the House where all 435 of them face judgment in six weeks. The Plan was to get Obama and the Dems to vote FOR the bill, and McSame then would have cover to vote against.

That has failed miserably. McSame is getting killed in the polls today.

Hence, you're now seeing Improved GOP Plan B:

1. McSame heroically suspends campaign to save Wall Street, displaying Real Leadership among those horrible Washington Insider types that he is not a part of nope can you smell the maverick.
2. McSame saves America from Second Great Depression.
3. Obama has no choice but to go along (IOKIYAR) and is crucified for it.
4. McSame, having saved universe, now must be your President.

The obvious counter is to point out, well, the obvious. This is a stunt. If McSame was really concerned, he should have dropped things Monday. The reality is that the UberBailout is pretty much doomed right now.

NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports, advisors say they are also reaching out to Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe to discuss pulling ads as well. (That can be difficult once they are in station traffic rotations.)

McCain advisors say they will do all the debates but the schedule is up in the air.
They also deny that there is a political calculation in this and say without action the country could slide into a Depression by Monday and added "we'll see 12 percent unemployment" if action is not completed. GOP sources say they believe the current deal is dead on the Hill and reject suggestions that without McCain's vote Democrats would not support a package.

McCain advisors won't speak for Obama's side of the phone call but describe it as a "good conversation." Advisors also say this is not a response to sliding poll numbers and insist this is "an even race."

Yeah, Obama up 9 is an even race to these guys. Please note that while the bolded section up there is "not a political calculation", the entire paragraph indeed describes a cynical political calculation.

I mean c'mon, Depression by Monday? Not even I believe that. (For the record, 12% unemployment is coming either way folks...bailout or not...but not by Monday.)

McCain Senior Adviser Mark Salter briefed reporters just now off camera on the decision. He told us the following:
--McCain will suspend airing all ads and all campaign events pending obama agreement
--McCain called President Bush today and told him of the plan. He would not characterize Bush reax.
--McCain talked to colleagues on the Hill during last 2 days and learned that passage of the Paulson plan was going to be next to impossible
--McCain would partake in debate if they passed agreement by Friday morning
--Salter will get back to us on whther mccain is suspending fundraising
--Salter says they are confident if all parties get together--they can agree on a plan by Monday.

...which again, all supports Steps 1 and 2 of the GOP Plan B along with Preznitman's speech tonight. He's going to say that if there's not a deal by Friday, there's no debate and that Obama needs to stop being lazy uppity black man and work through the night and weekend. If there's no deal by Monday, the economy is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED and we'll be living in refridgerator boxes and shit by Monday night. UberBailout is dead. Long live the UberBailout.

So The Plan now is to scare the world into praying we spend $700 billion to save Wall Street, or DOW 5000 by Monday night. They are going back to the "smoking gun of a mushroom cloud" tactics.

They think you're stupid, you know.

And I'm Taking You With Me

Nancy says if the Dems are going to walk off the cliff into the UberBailout trap, they're taking the GOP with them.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is telling Democrats that she will not support President Bush’s $700 billion bailout of the financial sector unless there is significant Republican support for the controversial plan.

The politics of the bailout are tricky and dangerous for both political parties, particularly since it comes weeks before the presidential and congressional elections.

As a result, Pelosi (D-Calif.) has effectively sent the message that if she is going to jump off a cliff to rescue Wall Street, she wants House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and George W. Bush holding her hands when she leaps.

Pelosi made this scenario clear at a lengthy closed-door meeting of House Democrats on Tuesday. Many of those present said they took Pelosi’s message to mean that a “majority of the minority” needs to support the bill before she will bring it to the floor.

Good for her. Here's the interesting part however:

To get that kind of support, President Bush needs to go on television to speak directly to the public, and get on the phone to rally his fellow Republicans, said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).

“If it’s a crisis,” Clyburn said in a statement, “and we all need to come together, then as leader of this nation, the president needs to take the lead and bring the country together.”

Oh please please please let Preznitman go on prime-time national television and plead his case to Americans on why he has to take a trillion of our taxpayer dollars or so to save Wall Street CEOs a few weeks before a Presidential election.

That would be awesome. It would be followed by, oh, 50 million Americans going "Screw you and the Republicans" simultaneously. It would probably be noticeable in Washington.

[UPDATE] Yep! That's exactly what Preznitman's gonna do, get up in front of America and tell them that you need to give King En-Er-Eee a thousand billion dollars and stuff or America gets it!

President Bush may make a prime-time speech as early as Wednesday night to put pressure on Congress to approve a $700 billion plan to bail out Wall Street, a senior administration official told CNN.

Oh yes. PLEASE remind everyone the Republicans want to steal from the poor to pay the rich.

You Know The UberBailout Fix Is In

...when you see headlines like "Senate attack on bailout lacks explicit threat".

Many members of the Senate blasted the Bush administration's Wall Street bailout plan on Tuesday, but no senator has come forward so far with an explicit pledge to kill the $700 billion proposal.

The rules of the Senate, unlike the House of Representatives, give individual lawmakers substantial power to delay or halt legislation, but three Senate aides said there were no clear signs yet of that power being exercised.

And that's the ballgame, folks. The Plan is go, the Dems will get the crap kicked out of them as this becomes the Bush-Pelosi-Obama Socialism On Wall Street Act, and President McSame continues us on the path to hell.

I expect something to be on Preznitman's desk by this weekend.

Enjoy.

[UPDATE] The Bush-Cheney-Pelosi-Reid-Obama Bailout Bill continues to take shape.

There was a time when Dick Cheney could turn back a Republican revolt on Capitol Hill.

That time is gone.

House Republicans rose up en masse against their vice president on Tuesday morning to blast an administration proposal that would grant Treasury historic authority to start buying hundreds of billions of dollars in devalued mortgage-related assets, according to members present.

The lines to speak were long, the questions many and sentiment in the Cannon Caucus Room Tuesday swayed heavily against the Treasury proposal.

Afterward, Texas Rep. Joe Barton took the unusual step of telling reporters that he had politely given Cheney a piece of his mind – the sort of dissent Republicans considered unthinkable during much of the Bush administration's reign.

A full-throated Republican revolt could create huge problems for the administration and congressional Democrats scrambling to assemble a package to reassure jittery markets. It could also preserve the Republicans’ options after the fact – if the bailout doesn’t work or proves deeply unpopular with voters, they can say they opposed it.

Ahh yes, Politico.com takes note of a House GOP revolt against a bill the Democrats and the Bushies are putting together.

Take notes. We're getting our asses kicked again and we're walking right into the trap anyway.

Poll Up Your Arse

The latest ARG poll shows two things(h/t Think Progress): One, Bush's approval rating is back in the basement, a record-tying nadir of 19%, down from 30% in August.

Two, the number of people polled who now say "the economy is improving" is statistically zero.
None. Nobody. Zilch. Nada. 82% or five in six say it's getting worse.

Even Republicans are pissed.

Among Republicans, 46% approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 48% disapprove. Among Democrats, 97% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy and 2% approve. Among independents, 8% approve and 87% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy.

Democrats and Independents are overwhelmingly against Bush on the economy. A majority of Republicans are against him too. McSame = Bush, now more than ever.

[UPDATE] FiveThirtyEight has Obama running away with this one.

They have him winning VA, CO, OH, IA, NH and even NV.

Zandar's Thought Of the Day

SecTreas Henry Paulson was on teevee today, bumrushing all the Village Idiot shows, saying that if we don't get this passed AS IS, THIS WEEK, America is done for.

AS IS of course is a $700 billion check to the Bush Administration with quite literally zero oversight and zero regulation. It's a twelve digit number given to the same people who told us to trust them implicitly on Iraq, Afghanistan, torture, civil liberties, the PATRIOT Act, rule of law, executive privilege and oh yeah, the economy.

So now they want to pass the largest intervention in the free markets in 70 years or so in a matter of a few days, giving them 100% implicit trust that this is absolutely necessary and that they are doing this only because there is no other choice.

So why question is this: Why exactly should we trust the Bush administration on this again? Can anybody honestly give me a single, solid reason why we should trust them with $700 billion with no oversight given their conduct over the last eight years?

If you can, I'll shut this blog down and vote McSame.

More Details Of UberBailout

Preznitman is starting the price tag at $700 billion dollars.

President Bush said Saturday that the plan matches the scope of the problem.

"It is a big package because it's a big problem," he told reporters at a joint news conference with Alvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia.

"The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package," Bush said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, lawmakers and their aides are expected to work through the weekend in an effort to craft a bill swiftly. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill said they expect the bill to go before a vote within days.

Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other officials have said in recent days that the lack of easy credit between banks and other financial institutions threatens to inflict serious damage on the economy if not addressed immediately.

Remember, that's just the opening bid. And once again I remind you that every step the government has taken to fix this problem has been increasingly more expensive and has failed every single time.

They are still treating this as a liquidity problem. Buy the toxic waste off the books and banks will magically be solvent again? No. Look, let's call this what it is: the plan to push this crisis off for another six months onto the next President's plate.

The basic problem here is that the housing depression is still going. It will go well into 2010. Mortgages will lose money. Banks are still leveraged out the ass. This plan does nothing -- not a single thing mind you -- for homeowners facing foreclosure. Even worse, this bailout will lock up the foreclosure market. Nobody's going to buy a house if the value goes down. Millions of more Americans will go underwater on their mortgages.

They will walk away, broken. Imagine what $700 billion could do for homeowners in underwater mortgages. But they won't see a dime. They will lose their homes. Homes nearby will lose their value. More people will get into trouble. Homeowners already are maxed out on debt.

So that $700 billion won't be nearly enough to buy these toxic debts, because more debts will go bad, more homes will go into foreclosure, banks will lose money on foreclosed properties as real estate drops and they will become increasingly more insolvent.

All this bailout will do is encourage massive consolidation. You'll see megabanks buy out everything they can get their hands on in order to take more assets and force the government to take toxic debt off the books through UberBailout, for these new hyperbanks will be Too Big To Fail. AIG has shown the financial sector the way.

What assets they do have they will take increasingly larger risks with. And those risks will fail as mortgages and the economy fail.

It's a death spiral, and we're trapped in it. This too will fail. $700 billion will turn into trillions and trillions, until hyper-inflation kicks in and we're all screwed. And how do I know it's going to fail? The same Wall Street people who got us into this mess are going to be in charge of managing the bailout.

As part of the government bailout of the financial industry, the Treasury has floated a plan with industry executives that envisions the $700 billion in bad mortgage debts being bought by the government will be run by five to ten outside asset managers, CNBC has learned.

These managers will each run portfolios of up to $50 billion each, according to a source familiar with the plan. The portfolios will be amassed through so-called "reverse auctions" where the seller bids the lowest price it will accept from the government for buying up the asset.

Enjoy the ride.

Who Could Have Possibly Predicted The Russia/Georgia Problem?

Well, turns out of all people it was a friggin Republican Senator. Steve Clemons lays it out.

Of particular note in Chuck Hagel's letter relating vaguely to autonomous provinces in Georgia:

. . .Across the board, officials are clearly concerned about the consequences -- including unintended and uncontrollable consequences -- of a Kosovar declaration of independence. This includes a former senior Russian official known for his pro-Western views, who told me that, "there is no way that one cannot view a Kosovar declaration of independence as anything but a precedent" for other similar conflicts.

Hagel also writes:

At a time when our relations with Russia are badly frayed, our military is overly engaged, we're dealing with serious fissures in NATO over Afghanistan, and European willingness to respond militarily to an outbreak of violence in Kosovo and the Balkans is uncertain, I urge you to proceed with caution, weighing carefully the potential implications of a diplomatic event that could stretch well beyond the Balkans.

We need to weigh our current policy against our strategic interests -- in the Balkans, in Europe, with Russia, and in a shared, international understanding of national sovereignty under international law. It is not at all clear to me that a unilateral settlement of Kosovo can provide a lasting, stable solution for this region. We must think through all of the complexities ofthe Kosovo issue, the grave risk of violence against Serb minorities in Kosovo, and how to avoid isolating and alienating Serbia.

This letter warns the administration that its actions in the Balkans ran the risk of triggering blowback from Russia -- and yet there is no evidence that the administration worried that Russia would exploit the model of Kosovo in other ways -- particularly as we saw Russia assert the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

While many US Senators write to the President and other cabinet officers on requests for consideration of this project or that, Chuck Hagel was regularly provoking the administration with sensible, realistic assessments about America's geostrategic choices and their consequences.

Many of these letters -- if not all -- seem to have been ignored. I have not been able as of yet to find a letter from Rice back to Senator Hagel -- but Hagel's letter is enough to show that the administration had more than adequate warning from Senate Foreign Relations Committee members that a Russia storm could be on the way.

Once again, Preznitman listens to...nobody.

Bushenomics 101

Preznit Chucklepants took a break from fundraising to reassure the American people six days after the problem started.

Bush said recent actions by the government to take over the huge insurance company AIG on Tuesday as well as mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were necessary to prevent a "severe disruption" in financial markets.

"These actions are necessary and important, and the markets are adjusting to them," Bush said.

Sure it is, pretzelboy. Even congressional Republicans are pissed.

Key Republicans on Capitol Hill blasted the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve on Wednesday for orchestrating an $85 billion bailout of insurance giant American International Group, and the White House for not informing them of the plan.

Meanwhile, Democrats blamed the Bush administration for the financial crisis, while the White House pointed a finger at Congress.

The criticism came a day after lawmakers were surprised by the news that taxpayers would again be called on to shore up a member of the struggling financial sector.

"Once again the Fed has put the taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars to bail out an institution that put greed ahead of responsibility and used their good name to take risky bets that did not pay off," said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Kentucky, a member of the Senate Banking Committee.

A spokesman for Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the committee, said the senator "profoundly disagrees with the decision to use taxpayer dollars to bail out a private company" and is upset the government has sent an inconsistent message to the markets by bailing out AIG after it just refused to save investment bank Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy.

"The American taxpayer should not be asked to unwillingly assume the inordinate risks that financial experts knowingly undertook, particularly when taxpayer exposure is increased by the ad hoc manner in which these bailouts have been engineered," said Shelby's aide, Jonathan Graffeo.

Silly GOP lawmakers. You don't matter to Bush. You never did. Asking Congress for permission to use money is so 19th Century.

Preznitman does what the hell he wants to. And so will McSame and Palin when they are in charge.