Insider
15 November 2011
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Occupy Wall Street, San Francisco, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
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Mumbai, India: Lead clown Biju poses before a show at the Rambo circus [Vivek Prakash/Reuters]
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I managed to sleep thru 60 Minutes, I had planned to catch it to see just how badly La Nan did when queried about her conflict of interest investments… but moiv happened to pop me this:
(CBS News)
Washington, D.C. is a town that runs on inside information – but should our elected officials be able to use that information to pad their own pockets? As Steve Kroft reports, members of Congress and their aides have regular access to powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock market trades in the very industries they regulate. For now, the practice is perfectly legal, but some say it’s time for the law to change.
The following is a script of “Insiders” which aired on Nov. 13, 2011. Steve Kroft is correspondent, Ira Rosen and Gabrielle Schonder, producers.
The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they’ll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year.
Few of them are doing it for the salary and all of them will say they are doing it to serve the public. But there are other benefits: Power, prestige, and the opportunity to become a Washington insider with access to information and connections that no one else has, in an environment of privilege where rules that govern the rest of the country, don’t always apply to them.
Questioning Pelosi: Steve Kroft heads to D.C.
When Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, and other lawmakers wouldn’t answer Steve Kroft’s questions, he headed to Washington to get some answers about their stock trades.
Most former congressmen and senators manage to leave Washington – if they ever leave Washington – with more money in their pockets than they had when they arrived, and as you are about to see, the biggest challenge is often avoiding temptation.
Peter Schweizer: This is a venture opportunity. This is an opportunity to leverage your position in public service and use that position to enrich yourself, your friends, and your family.
Peter Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University. A year ago he began working on a book about soft corruption in Washington with a team of eight student researchers, who reviewed financial disclosure records. It became a jumping off point for our own story, and we have independently verified the material we’ve used.
Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and senators managed to accumulate significant wealth beyond their salaries, and proved particularly adept at buying and selling stocks. . . . . . .
I find it all especially hilarious, aside from enraging, as the description of the Pelosi family that is in fact used and does fit what they do for cash flow:
Investor Class Family.
And how.
They also profiled Gregg, Hastert, Boehner, Bachus and others – all dirty as hell as I see it… so, they spread the joy.
The former Speaker did about as well (badly, that is) as she ever does:
And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband have participated in at least eight IPOs. One of those came in 2008, from Visa, just as a troublesome piece of legislation that would have hurt credit card companies, began making its way through the House. Undisturbed by a potential conflict of interest the Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars. Two days later it was trading at $64. The credit card legislation never made it to the floor of the House.
Congresswoman Pelosi also declined our request for an interview, but agreed to call on us if we attended a news conference.
Kroft: Madam Leader, I wanted to ask you why you and your husband back in March of 2008 accepted and participated in a very large IPO deal from Visa at a time there was major legislation affecting the credit card companies making its way through the– through the House.
Nancy Pelosi: But–
Kroft: And did you consider that to be a conflict of interest?
Pelosi: The– y– I– I don’t know what your point is of your question. Is there some point that you want to make with that?
Kroft: Well, I– I– I guess what I’m asking is do you think it’s all right for a speaker to accept a very preferential, favorable stock deal?
Pelosi: Well, we didn’t.
Kroft: You participated in the IPO. And at the time you were speaker of the House. You don’t think it was a conflict of interest or had the appearance–
Pelosi: No, it was not–
Kroft: –of a conflict of interest?
Pelosi: –it doesn’t– it only has appearance if you decide that you’re going to have– elaborate on a false premise. But it– it– it’s not true and that’s that.
Kroft: I don’t understand what part’s not true.
Pelosi: Yes sir. That– that I would act upon an investment.
Congresswoman Pelosi pointed out that the tough credit card legislation eventually passed, but it was two years later and was initiated in the Senate.
Pelosi: I will hold my record in terms of fighting the credit card companies as speaker of the House or as a member of Congress up against anyone.
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The NYPC has moved in on Zuccotti Park, thanks to diane, these comments of hers drawing on the NYT time line and other links (carried forward from previous thread):
3:16 a.m. Occupiers linking arms around riot police
3:15 a.m. NYPD destroying personal items. Occupiers prevented from leaving with their possessions.
3:13 a.m. NYPD deploying sound cannon
3:08 a.m. heard on livestream: “they’re bringing in the hoses.”
3:05 a.m. NYPD cutting down trees in Liberty Square
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2:55 a.m. NYC council-member Ydanis Rodríguez arrested and bleeding from head.
2:44 a.m. Defiant occupiers barricaded Liberty Square kitchen
2:44 a.m. NYPD destroys OWS Library. 5,000 donated books in dumpster
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2:42 a.m. Brooklyn Bridge confirmed closed
2:38 a.m. 400-500 marching north to Foley Square
2:32 a.m. All subways but R shut down
live audio coverage from WBAI
#ows on twitter
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NYPD IS RAIDING OCCUPY WALL STREET
Posted 1 hour ago on Nov. 15, 2011, 1:20 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Eviction of Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Square Underway
Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months and birthplace of the 99% movement that has spread across the country and around the world, is presently being evicted by a large police force.
EVERYONE should get to the park immediately for eviction defense! Subway stations and bridges are closed. Please either take a cab or use Canal St. subway station (which is currently open.) . . . . .
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, U.S. House.
Rep. Charles Rangel, who is charged with ethics violations, speaks to reporters from the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building on W 125th St. in Harlem, New York, NY. [Giancarli for News]
From the People mag report being floated tonight on Charlie Rangel, pol extraordinaire from Harlem…
Rangel famously wrote in his autobiography, “I haven’t had a bad day since” the Korean War, but the ethics trial might change that sentiment.
In the email in box tonight from Eastern Seabord Little Birdie…
I think Charlie is out tommorrow…The parents of a CR staffer, AA, suddenly packed up and left their NJ shore home … heading with haste back to DC… literally broke camp and all but shuttered the beach house removing two of the 3 Benzes. . Longtime DC AA’s , Daddy was in Fed procurement, Grandaddy in Wilders entourage..
Methinks they got the call for stage backdrop at Charlies wake…
They own multiple multiple multiple homes DC NJ VA Fla. with matching Benz’s at each joint…On a GS 12 level salary. Their 20 something babykins literally of works right outside Cholly’s inner office door.
Please Charlie, take your crew with you…
I laughed especially hard at what is apparently a criminal organisation being rattled… as one of the themes being pounded on our local talk radio, tightly tied to the Dem machine in town, is that we cannot stand for the Mexican Mafia, the drug cartels moving into the USA!! USA!!, the land of cheerleaders and pom poms!, because, yes sirree, we cleaned all of that up, our own mob problems… and we cannot stand for invading criminal element mobs.
We cleaned it up? We did? Where? When?
Aside from BOTH political parties are gangs, thieving and dealing gangs… money laundering (even Jay Cost, well to the Right of me, at RCP says both parties are money launderers)… BUT + ALSO, we have made sure successive waves of immigrant gangs have joined our home grown gangs.
I cannot even begin to count the ethnic gangs in Cali. Where to begin. Aside from the Whites.
Geesh.
Oh yes, right, how could I forget: Good Bye Charlie R.
Hat door hit you hurry, etc.
Of course the running, endless joke is that one of the contenders to fill his seat is Adam Clayton Powell the third, or fourth or fifteenth.
Legacy circus.
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Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Abortion Rights, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, Sex / Reproductive Health, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
Walky Porkies: A woman walks a large porker on the Pan-America road, south of Lima, Peru. This big piggy went to market…. [AP via UK Telegraph]
I laughed when I read this a few hours after The Big Vote:
Mush! Salesman-in-Chief! You’re booked, on the hoof and out on the hustings, for months to come….
President Obama is set to begin an immediate public relations blitz aimed at turning around Americans’ opinion of the health-care bill.
Planning inside the West Wing for the post-vote period has proceeded quietly, even as the president and his allies on Capitol Hill were fighting for the measure’s passage.
Reshaping the legislation’s image will take place in three phases, White House aides said:
– the immediate aftermath;
– the seven months until the November midterm elections;
– and the several years that follow, during which many provisions in the measure will gradually take effect. [Good Luck!]
Driving the message during those periods is the belief among Obama’s top advisers that Republicans have boxed themselves into a corner with unanimous opposition to the legislation and talk of a repeal.
“The Republicans have way overshot the runway in their criticism of health reform,” said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. snip snap
Well, it should be easy to take down all those R who have OVERSHOT the runway? Right?
Can this get funnier?
It can!
Administration officials are also preparing talking points and fact sheets that lawmakers can take home with them on their Easter vacation, Obama advisers said. Those documents are being developed with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, aides said.
That immediate help — along with efforts by the Democratic National Committee, its Organizing for America project and outside groups that supported the health-care legislation — could be critical to Democrats’ hope of retaining control of Congress in the November elections.
With the DNC and OfA at the ready to save the bacon, there should be no problems.
Yes?
Homework for Easter break… and hey, speaking of Easter Break! there may be a resolution in Natalee’s Less Than Excellent Adventure to Aruba, some years back, coming up. (Not exactly vacation pics, but … it seems there are photos of bones lying in the sandy depths of the water… could be our lost Southern Miss!)
Then there is Tiger. And the golf balls. Sandra and Jesse James (and other inflagrante delicto to come! Can only expect so much from one pair)…
AND the POPE.
Entertainment for years!! (They’ll all be making speeches! Interviews! Flashbulbs!)
No worries!!
And it could not come soon enough for some nervous House members, many of whom have been disappointed by the weak support they have received from the administration and Democratic groups.
One Democratic lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be considered critical of the president, said such support has been extremely limited. He said opponents of the legislation have run nearly $1 million worth of ads criticizing him, while supporters have spent about a tenth of that. Organizing for America “has been a paper tiger in my district,” he said.
At the Democratic National Committee, officials running the Organizing for America project said they have received pledges of 9 million hours of volunteer work on behalf of candidates who supported health-care reform. snip snappy
Snicker.
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
People are silhouetted as they walk on the frozen inner city lake Alster during sunset in the northern German city of Hamburg [REUTERS]
hmm well who knows… but in a Politico article on some kissing up to Wall St going on in NY races – Ford, Paterson, Maloney and Saujani – there is mention of this:
[A] Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 79% of all New York voters backed a “millionaire’s tax,” in the form of a higher state income tax rate for people earning more than $1 million a year.
Among Democrats, support for the measure ran 91% to 7%.
The state’s labor-backed Working Families Party has been testing support for a “banker’s bonus tax” in its door-to-door canvassing in recent days, the party’s executive director, Dan Cantor, said, a prelude to a campaign on the issue.
“It’s about the best issue work we’ve ever done,” he said of the response to canvassers. “People are angry. [Wall Street] nearly wrecked the economy and people don’t think they should be rewarded for their trouble.” ….
I am happy if they all – both sides in a perfect fiction – run scared… 😉
Posted by marisacat in DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, San Francisco, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
Socotra
An Egyptian Vulture, one of 192 bird species that can be found on Socotra. (Piotr Kot)
More links:
• The Wonder Land of Socotra, Yemen
• The land that time forgot
I landed on this gallery at the LAT… Socotra, an island in an archipelago off Yemen. I had never heard of it… reachable only by boat during limited periods of the year (monsoon season knocks the boat out) ’til a runway went in ’99. Like Gallapagos, I gather, go soon. Masses of the upright and walking on two feet are arriving (a different sort of vulture).
In a gallery at Telegraph.. I saw these two donkeys. (But was not sure I wanted to look at them all day Friday!) I say make THEM Speaker and Majority Leader.
I caught Nancy late today, her public weep.. or whatever that was. I cringed. Anyway, San Francisco sits on a ton of dirty secrets in that event, from the morning, the day of the killings to the arrest to the trial… probably all the way to Dan White’s suicide.
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, WAR!.
… this will probably defy the automated links… 😉
Whoops! I forgot! I DID have something to add… just taken ‘as is’ from the Greg Sargent blog at Wapo:
It appears that President Obama has asked House Dem leaders to jettison another provision sought by liberals from the stimulus bill as a way of placating Republicans.
As I noted below, anonymous House Dem staffers told Politico that Nancy Pelosi and the House Dem leadership were dropping from the bill the so-called “cram downs,” which give judges the power to renegotiate mortgages on terms that are better suited to homeowners who are in trouble. House liberals wanted this, and it was unclear why the leadership had done this.
I’ve just confirmed from a senior House Dem aide that the House leadership did this at the behest of Obama aides, who asked the leadership to chuck the provision. This is the second such move: It comes after the news this morning that Obama had personally appealed to Pelosi to drop family planning funds for low-income people from stim package — also to placate Republicans.
“The Obama camp said, `Don’t do it in the stimulus, we’ll do it in another bill,’” the aide told me, referring to the cram downs. “He thinks it’s controversial with Republicans.”
“Now Obama can say he’s trying to show a good faith effort with Republicans,” the aide continued. “He’s reaching out a hand to them, they keep slapping at it.”
Asked for confirmation, Pelosi spokesperson Brendan Daly would only say: “The Speaker has said that [the cram down measure] is a priority for her and for the caucus. We will work to pass it soon, whether in another vehicle or in a stand alone bill.”
One quick question about the politics here: Do Obama aides actually believe such gestures will win over Republicans? Perhaps, but it’s also possible that such measures are all about laying the groundwork in advance to blame GOPers and paint them as partisan obstructionists if and when most of them vote against the stim package, which they appear likely to do, no matter how many concessions Obama grants.
Oh sorry! I find that last to be salesmanship. Laying the groundwork to blame the R. Woo hoo Sure!
Yeah right. I am very mindful that Obster, at the Harvard Law Review, elevated the baby Federalists.
Go for it pretzel.
Posted by marisacat in California / Pacific Coast, DC Politics, Democrats, Europe, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, Spain, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
Meanwhile, further north in the town of Gijón, employees of a shipyard took to the streets in protest over threatened job losses [REUTERS]
A few days ago workers in Spain took to the streets to protest job lay-offs, about 1,600 jobs at a Nissan plant and to protest job losses at a shipyard, Gijon… Homemade rockets. Ok! These people do not fool around. The photos from Telegraph UK…
^^^^
This is riding at the top of Clusterstock, from Henry Blodget… the dust bunnies sheltering in place in this house are stiffer, with greater intestinal fortitude, than the Democratic congressional pack.
Weak:
Republicans are putting their feet down and refusing to throw another $50 billion into Detroit’s black hole. Democrats, meanwhile, don’t think they have the votes to ram the bailout home.
Has Bailout Nation finally drawn a line in the sand? We’re on the edge of our seats.
Even I, who thinks the Democrats are still nearly dead (but multiplying, it’s a mutation), did not quite buy it (this is Blodget after all) but then this extract he links to in the WSJ:
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said he knew of no Republicans who would support the Democrats’ $25 billion proposal and said he was disinclined to move a bill without bipartisan support.
“I’d want to be careful about bringing up a proposition that might fail,” given that a rescue plan would likely fare better under a President-elect Barack Obama administration, Sen. Dodd (D., Conn.) told reporters on Capitol Hill. “There’s some political considerations that need to be made over the next few days.”
eh. Things will be better in the 111th no doubt…
…and, frankly, speaking from the peanut gallery, I think Detroit car business, their lending business, all of it, should be forced into business bankruptcy, reorganisation.
I so enjoy reading the news and seeing (hearing, frankly) GE giggling at the sheer cash coming their way.
From today:
Today feels like one of the quieter days in awhile. The market has been trading with in a relatively narrow range, but GE and Citigroup are sticking out like a sore thumb. Citi, which got headlines for breaking $10 yesterday is now struggling to hang on to $9, down about 9% today. And GE, which just last night got some help from the FDIC is off another 8%, falling below $15.
Somehow or other, it gets wearing… and if one wishes to hold on to the morning’s bran flakes, don’t think about Jack Welch. Or his face. He may not be in charge today, but all those years… not worth thinking about — ’til The Bail Outs.
And, I am begging for better spin… I just cannot believe that Ob & co would consider Hillary for State. Please, better spin. I am begging.
There is good news: seems Stevens, Uncle Ted who wore a Hulk Hogan tie, is going down. Hail Senator Begich. With luck, Franken keeps finding votes and Chambliss loses his run off in Georgia.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Control of the US Senate hangs in the balance with three races still too close to call. Democrats picked up six seats on November 4th, building up a commanding advantage to currently control fifty-seven Senate seats to forty for the Republicans. But three key races—in Minnesota, Alaska and Georgia—are still not certain, and they could open the door to a filibuster-proof, sixty-seat “supermajority” for the Democrats.
In Georgia, incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss fell short of winning the 50 percent of the vote required for election under Georgia law. He faces a runoff against former Democratic state legislator Jim Martin on December 2nd.
In Alaska, Senator Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, leads former Anchorage mayor, Democrat Mark Begich, by just over 3,000 votes, with about 30 percent of the ballots remaining to be counted. Stevens faces potential expulsion proceedings after his conviction last month of seven felonies connected to lies on financial disclosure forms. A final vote count is expected next Wednesday.
And in Minnesota, the race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken is the closest in the country. As of Monday, Coleman leads Franken by a razor-thin 206 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast. When certified, the result will lead to an automatic recount, which state law says is triggered if the margin of victory is less than half of one percent.
Anything to reach the ‘no excuses’ congressional numbers. Then, their only out is to claim to be the Three Blind Mice. And Moe, Curly and whoever the other one was….
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UPDATE, 12:24 am Friday…
Tea Fire in Montecito hills: Witnesses watch a home burn burn in the hills above Montecito, Calif. November 13, 2008 [Phil Klein – Assocated Press via LAT]
For a few hours, a couple, they were calling it a brush fire. Not quite. 800 acres as of an hour ago, over a hundred homes or structures… a comment left at a TV news site said the gas lines were exploding… along with other things, the usual, the cars and propane tanks. A hot, fast moving fire, the kind that lashes a range of land to a post and just whips away. We got thru October, thru Hallowe’en, without a fire to mark it.. Some years we seem to be an exploding Jack-o-Lantern.
Several fire departments were battling the flames as thick plumes of smoke hovered overhead.
“It looked like lava coming down a volcano,” Leslie Hollis Lopez told The Associated Press as she gathered belongings from her house in Montecito.
“It’s very tenuous. We’re hoping the winds are favorable.”
The Tea Fire, this one is, in Montecito, San Ysidro Ranch and lapping at the outskirts of Santa Barabara. Tonight, for whatever reason, they are calling the winds driving the fires the Diablo winds… and they will continue thru tomorrow.
Year after year, our cycle of wildfire, leaving the land scraped to the nub, the rains, mudslide and landslide… the fires are always apocalyptic. Grabbing the children, the pets, the photos. Fleeing.
In the hills of Montecito, residents of the darkened streets lighted only by the glow from the burning brush could be seen packing up cars. Horse trailers and Porsches snaked their way down narrow, winding mountain roads.
I think we are afraid the year will come when we grab the precious things and simply turn back and run into the fire.
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, WAR!.
Used car lot outsized inflatable…
I should assume that some one from Detroit assumed the position in front of Nancy.. ?? The position that Paulson last held..?? On his knees before Madame Speaker..??
Reid, Pelosi Urge Treasury to Extend Aid to Automakers
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 9, 2008; A01
With the nation’s automotive industry hemorrhaging cash, congressional leaders called on the Bush administration yesterday to offer government assistance to the car companies as part of the Treasury Department’s $700 billion emergency rescue program.
The call came one day after General Motors, the nation’s largest auto manufacturer, announced another multibillion dollar loss for the third quarter and said it was running out of money fast. Ford, the second-biggest car company, also reported heavy losses. Unless the government steps in, analysts warned, GM could face bankruptcy, endangering the livelihoods of about 100,000 North American autoworkers and hundreds of thousands of others whose jobs depend on the industry.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) asked Paulson to “review the feasibility . . . of providing temporary assistance to the automobile industry during the current financial crisis.”
The letter notes that Congress granted Paulson broad discretion to use the bailout money to “restore financial market stability. A healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market security,” the letter continues, as well as to “the overall health of our economy, and the livelihood of the automobile sector’s workforce.”
OhKay! If we all declare ourselves bankers can we all instantly keep bankers hours? That would work for me…
A plan is in the works at the Treasury to use bailout money to take ownership stakes in a wide array of companies beyond the banking sector. But Treasury officials have indicated that participants in its recapitalization program must be financial firms subject to federal regulation. That means GMAC, GM’s auto financing arm, may be eligible for quick help, but GM itself may not.
I am working on some nickname having to do with drooling yeses as they ransack the taxpayer…
In recent days, top auto industry executives have been making the rounds in Washington, trying to shake loose federal cash from a variety of sources. And there are strong indications that Democrats, newly empowered in Tuesday’s election, are inclined to oblige.
And yes.. I did notice:
Obama’s team of economic advisers includes Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) and former Michigan congressman David Bonior, who is considered a strong candidate for Labor secretary. With Granholm on stage with him Friday, Obama said his transition team is already working on “policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars,” either under existing law or through the passage of “additional legislation.”
Bonior no doubt needs something massaged after all that support for the new dad.
And, I am left supporting red tape, in all its glory:
In the meantime, however, the automakers have gotten little but sympathy. Congress recently voted to fund a $25 billion low-interest loan package intended to help the car companies retool their factories to produce fuel-efficient vehicles that meet tough new emissions standards. But that money has been hung up by red tape. Obama and other Democrats have discussed providing another $25 billion in loans, bringing the total federal aid to $50 billion. But unless the Bush administration agrees to work on an economic stimulus package when Congress returns to Washington later this month, that money would have to wait until at least January.
From The Hill:
Pelosi and Reid on Thursday met with representatives of the auto industry, stating that they “left the meetings convinced that our nation’s automobile industry – the heart of our manufacturing sector – and the jobs of tens of thousands of American workers are at risk.”
However, while lobbying that funds be made available, Reid and Pelosi also urged that Paulson “impose strong conditions on such assistance in order to protect taxpayers and maximize the potential for the industry’s recovery.”
“An automobile industry that is forward-looking and focused on ingenuity, competitiveness, and the creation of green jobs for the future is essential to its long-term viability,” they wrote.
Maybe if you subject the automakers to an 8 on the Richter scale earthquake they might get forward looking… basically, the dirty not-so-little secret was 30 years of presumably predictable income from financing cars matched with poor R & D and reinvestment.
Maybe they can accidentally get around to extending unemployment benefits… and working out a bail out for states (we’re one of them) already about to deplete the funds for those benefits…
Can we get in line for change? Too? Even if we are near the end of the line, at least it is something..? Right?
[I am thinking of a new category for post Jan 20.. something along the lines of “Change of Life”]
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LOL There’s always privilege and ease for the insiders… I did get a kick out of this photo at LAT on presidential pets..
President George W. Bush’s dogs, Barney and Spot, race down the steps of the presidential helicopter on the South Lawn after the president and his entourage returned from a visit to Bush’s ranch in Texas. Barney, at the bottom of the steps, is a Scottish terrier; Spot, an English springer spaniel, was the daughter of Millie, who belonged to the first President Bush. Millie died in February 2004.
[May 5, 2003 Reuters]
*****
The 11 o’clock news here mentioned that the biggest turn out tonight was in San Diego, 10,000 marched against passage of Prop 8…
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, U.S. House.
Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the House majority leader, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are hoping to bolster Democratic numbers. [Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times]
I see it… don’t you? All over their faces………….. It’s a recent shot too, just appearing in the Times today. Here is a snip from the text:
If Mr. Obama, of Illinois, defeats Mr. McCain, he could be the first president since Jimmy Carter to enter office with wide control of the House and 60 votes in the Senate. That in theory would give Democrats the power to overcome procedural hurdles that have bedeviled both parties in recent years.
“Whether or not the Democrats have 60 is something that is going to be a very significant factor in the way the country is governed,” said Robert A. Caro, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and Senate historian, referring to the number needed to cut off Senate debate and push legislation to a vote.
Cheer up.. I am sure the pale pink lambkins are en route. Probably the [city transit] bus broke down, but Legions of Lambchops will get here to sing songs of overwhelming Democratic majorities. Songs of joy… what else?
Democrats said they were well aware of the mistakes of the past and the overconfidence exhibited during one-party rule of the Clinton and Bush administrations that led to Democrats’ losing control of the House in 1994 and to Republicans’ experiencing a similar defeat in 2006.
Chastened by their years in exile, Democrats said they were determined to avoid those pitfalls should voters deliver them control of the White House and Congress.
The nature of the Democratic majority, expanded partly through the election of centrists and even conservatives, would also temper Democratic zeal to pursue an overly ideological agenda, Democrats said.
“We are going to get new members with a clear understanding that the reason they won is appealing to independents and disaffected Republicans, and they are going to want to continue to do that,” said the House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland.
Yet even in the last two years, with a slimmer majority, Mr. Hoyer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have struggled to manage the competing demands of party factions, including antiwar liberals on the left and fiscal hawks on the right.
Buck up Democrats! Remember! You’re getting the keys to the global meat locker!
Meanwhile the lambkins are unavoidably delayed for an unknown time… they tried continuing overland, street level, after the bus breakdown, but shooting broke out… so they found space with a convoy heading up to the elevated inter-state, but a tanker burst into flames, consuming several cars and the road surface itself… so they are back down on the street level. Right now, they are hiding in back alleys… and thinking they will pass on that sing song gig with the Dems… it’s occured to them the Dems really wanted them as items for the bar b q menu…
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Afghanistan War, California / Pacific Coast, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, San Francisco, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
A mullah kisses his son outside a temporary mosque at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul. [AP via BBC]
I just loved that baby, festooned so beautifully with poppies… and where is the baby? In a refugee camp in his own country.
But! not to worry!, the markets surged! Best single day! Best rebound! Ever! Best best best best! One enthusiastic burble I heard was, the single best day and it did what took 69 years previously to reach (a more than 900 market, not just a day’s rise).
Endlessly we prop ourselves up… truly we are High Schoolers, let loose on the world.
But! Not To Worry! An even better day is coming!
The Republican National Committee, growing nervous over the prospect of Democrats’ winning a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, is considering tapping into a $5 million line of credit this week to aid an increasing number of vulnerable incumbents, top Republicans say.
With party strategists fearing a bloodbath at the polls, GOP officials are shifting to triage mode, determining who can be saved and where to best spend their money.
And with the House and Senate Republican campaign committees being drastically outspent by their Democratic counterparts, and outside groups such as Freedom’s Watch offering far less help than was once anticipated, Republicans are turning to the national party committee as a lender of last resort.
A decision is imminent because television time must be reserved and paid for upfront, and available slots are dwindling.
A representative for the RNC would neither confirm nor deny that it was considering the move.
300 in the House, Nothing Less! I have lit candles.
As for the senate the new number to pray for is 61… so that if Lieberman takes his mean little balls and goes home to the Republican Yahweh, the Democrats still have 60. Jot it down and ruminate on it during the day, at odd times. Jesus hears every little prayer, however inadvertent.
In other news, I just heard that since the Yes on Prop 8 crowd began with their very powerful commercial using Newsom’s own triumphal words the day the SC ruled on SSM (“it’s comin’, whether anyone likes it or not!”, what made it bad ws he screamed it.. I swear he is bi polar), why, those enterprising folks (ein volk ein reich) have turned the polling around by 10 pts. AND they have only just debuted their second ad, the one that hits at the old bugaboo, your tiny frail children will be indoctrinated in the Great Gay Way.
4 weeks ago NO! on 8 was not out of danger but it was leading (with possibly as many as 20% undecided, the Yes forces saw that and moved in). No more.
But, Jesus is coming. Have no fear. And the mullah and his divine baby really must perk up. We have brought them Democracy and Better Days are Coming. Chickens in all pots.
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UPDATE, 6:06 AM PT
I need entertainment, don’t you?
Congressman Tim Mahoney (D-Classytown)
October 14, 2008 7:37 AM
ABC News’ Brian Ross has a recording of Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Florida, firing his mistress.
Listen HERE.
“I just learned today about the serious allegations concerning Congressman Tim Mahoney,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “These charges must be immediately and thoroughly investigated by the House Ethics Committee.”
— jpt
via Tapper at ABC
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From NYCO:
Marisacat 
