Financial Elite Terrorism—Bushco at work

This is mind boggling in it's implications. Let's dissect this a bit...

White House Dispatches Team to Push Economic Bill

September 23, 2008, 10:42 a.m.
By Keith Koffler
Roll Call Staff

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The White House today is drumming up extraordinary pressure on Congress to approve its plan to enact a $700 billion mortgage bailout fund, suggesting the markets cannot wait much longer and dispatching Vice President Cheney and other top officials up Pennsylvania Avenue to jawbone lawmakers.

Cheney, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and presidential adviser Ed Gillespie are meeting this morning with House Republican conservatives, where a rebellion is brewing against the size and questionable free market credentials of the administration proposal.

Yes, that's right— the opposition is coming from House Republican Conservatives. For a quick education, look up Ed Gillespie in Wikipedia: "When Karl Rove also departed in August, the Washington Post described Gillespie as stepping up to do part of Karl Rove's job in the White House" "He also played an aggressive role as spokesman for the Bush campaign during the vote recount in Florida."

Cheney will later gather with GOP Senators at the regular Tuesday lunch. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who collaborated in drawing up the proposal, are testifying this morning on Capitol Hill in an effort to defend their handiwork.

But Bush himself continues to do little to explain his plan, and he has refused to be questioned about it.

How much you want to bet he doesn't have a clue what they're doing.

Asked during a telephone briefing for reporters today whether Bush was speaking with lawmakers, White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto said the president is aware of their concerns but that Paulson is the salesman.

At least, that's what they told Bush.

Paulson said Congress and the administration must move rapidly.

Before anyone actually has a chance to read the thing. Hey, it worked with the Patriot Act...

“We must do so in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten American families' financial well-being, the viability of businesses both small and large, and the very health of our economy,” Paulson said in remarks as prepared for delivery. “The market turmoil we are experiencing today poses great risk to U.S. taxpayers.”

Fratto said it would be “unthinkable” for Congress not to pass legislation this week, asserting the result would be a “very, very serious situation” for the U.S. economy.

“It shouldn’t take much analysis to remember what happened last week, which was a very serious freeze-up in our credit markets,” Fratto said. “Our financial markets right now do not need uncertainty, they need increased certainty as to how this rescue plan is going to go forward — and that they can be sure that there is a plan to go forward — and that will begin the correction in our financial markets.”

Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

And here's the clue. They've been working this thing up for months, waiting for things to get so desparate, so critical, that they could spring it on Congress and then force it through before anyone could take a breath.

If it was so serious, why didn't they discuss it with, oh, maybe the Congressional Republican Leaders? I know, it would be asking too much to expect them to discuss it with the folks who supposedly actually run Congress, the Democrats...

This time they're even trying to scam their own Republicans.

Amid growing criticism of the initiative from multiple quarters, Fratto sought to defend its key principles and argue against changes.

He argued that the proposal is being unfairly characterized as a boon to Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, since credit market difficulties also squeeze average consumers. He minimized the need to help homeowners as part of the package — a key demand of Democrats — saying aiding the credit markets will help on its own and noting that Congress just approved a housing bill that includes assistance.

And Fratto sought to beat back efforts to limit the pay of CEOs whose companies would draw assistance under the legislation, saying it would make it difficult for the plan to work “If you provide disincentives for companies and firms out there that are holding mortgage-backed securities and other securities from participating in the program.”

What part of "rule of law" do they not understand? Apparently, any of it. "Making stupid, economy-threatening scams illegal might make crooks oppose it." Do tell.

Fratto noted that some firms holding troubled securities are otherwise successful. “They were not necessarily irresponsible players, and so you have to be careful how you deal with them,” he said.

Yes, and the Mafia built schools and orphanages...Hitler was kind to children... it is a complex world.

Some protesters and newsreporters exercise their constitutional rights and are beaten and jailed without mercy. No one is too concerned about being careful how they're dealt with...

Three reasons Congress is wrongheaded in Iraq

This is from an email from Cindy Sheehan, commenting on an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which Karl Rove complains about how Congress is threatening to screw up Iraq and the Middle East by trying to end the War in Iraq. Cindy agrees they're screwing up, but for failing to end the War...

There are at least three errors with the Congressional “New Direction in Iraq.” First of all the timelines are again “non-binding” and not worth the breath it takes to talk about them, or the ink and paper that it takes to write them (or the headache one gets to think about them). With 2007 being the deadliest year for our US troops and the people of Iraq (did anyone not see---except Bush and Congress that a “surge” which Karl says is working in his laughable op-ed---would not increase the bloodshed?) and the violence predictably picking up after the holy month of Ramadan, by the end of 2008, we should tragically witness the deaths of hundreds of more US troops and thousands of more Iraqis, with even more fleeing their homes to take an inhumane refugee status.

The second thing wrong with a short-term handover is that any amount of money for a war that is wrong, is also wrong. Using the drug addiction illustration again, if one of my children asked me for money to buy crack, but I told them abusing crack is wrong, but “I will give you more money to abuse crack: but only until March! By March, you must have your crack addiction under control because I won’t give you one more penny to abuse crack!” My child would take the money with relief to continue his/her habit knowing that by March (from my past performance of always- buckling under to his/her pressure) I would give him/her more money, anyway. Then between now and March, I could not once tell my child that abusing crack is “harmful/illegal” because I have given my “implied consent” by funding his/her habit. Congress is reaffirming the implied consent theory of war continually by feeding George’s habit for chaos and killing.

The third reason the offer of partial blood money to George is a mistake is that the Constitution divides powers between the branches. Congress (read—Democratic Leadership) has forgotten that the institution is a co-equal branch with the Executive and Judicial. I studied the Constitution in Civic class for my entire eighth grade year and it has only been amended twice since then, once granting suffrage to 18 year olds in 1971 after they had been dying for years in Vietnam (27th Amendment) Incidentally, with the Every Child Left Behind Act, our children, today, learn very little, if anything about civics, history, or critical thinking---that’s education in a fascist state, my friend. Anyhow, in eighth grade I learned that Congress has the power and duty to declare war and pay for war and the Executive has the duty to wage the war. In Congress’ New Direction, the bill has elements that “redefine” the mission in Iraq. I agree that the mission needs to be radically redefined to no mission at all. However, the president, who is clearly irresponsible, to say the very least, is well within his Constitutional right to veto any bill like this and within his Constitutional powers to wage the war as he sees fit. Have I said lately, that he isn’t fit, at all?

The only power that Congress has to end this war (and effectively and affectively redefining the mission), to the chagrin of Karl who is clearly out of step with reality and the country, is to not give George Bush one more penny of China’s money, let alone 50 billion more of Chinese dollars.

Quote of the day

New York Times:

Phillip Zelikow, Rice co-author and head of 911 Commission, disparaging those who wish to abandon civilized talks with north Korea and revert back to the old, obstructionist strategy with North Korea, the same strategy that saw them explode a nuclear bomb:

“You can’t just make these decisions using the top of your spinal cord, you have to use the whole brain,” said Philip D. Zelikow, the former counselor at the State Department. “What other policy are we going to pursue that we think would be better?”

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

A familiar administration divide:
Vice President Dick Cheney says
Israeli intelligence was credible,
while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
questions whether there was a real threat.

Cheney, the very embodiment of the reptilian brain.