Bush 2000 = Palin 2008.
Bush 2000 = Palin 2008.
Tonight on MSNBC, Countdown aired a video compilation showing the similarity in rhetoric between George W. Bush in 2000 and Sarah Palin in 2008. Keith Olbermann reported that “the people around [Palin] — the top-level campaign staffers crafting her message of change and reform — are almost all from the inner-circle of the same Bush campaigns and administration from which she offers that change.” He concluded, “Small surprise then that even in the very act of claiming her background, her experience qualify her to offer us that change from Bush, she does so sounding almost exactly like Bush.” Watch it:
Progressive Accountability put together its own Bush-Palin video compilation earlier today. Check it out here.
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Holt: Bailout Package Doesn’t Address The ‘Heart Of The Problem’ — People ‘Saddled With Bad Mortgages’
Holt: Bailout Package Doesn’t Address The ‘Heart Of The Problem’ — People ‘Saddled With Bad Mortgages’
In an interview with ThinkProgress today, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) said he had concerns with the way Congress rushed through the bailout package. “There should have been more deliberation,” he said. “It would have been better if there been hearings…and had a somewhat more open process.”
Holt noted that voting down the proposal on Monday didn’t actually improve the substance of the bill. But like his Democratic colleague Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX), Holt voted for the bailout package despite his reservations:
It will do some good. It will not be the cure-all. It’s not the bill I hoped for and have worked for and am still working for. But it has some merits.
He added that the bailout plan is “more good than bad,” but said the new law is “not the most efficient way” to deal with the financial crisis. Holt took issue with critics who say the bill expands the scope of executive power. “I actually don’t see it as a major transfer of power. It’s a transfer of $700 billion,” he argued. Listen here:
“if you were trying to help ordinary Americans,” Holt explained, “then why don’t we actually go to the heart of the problem that we’re trying to solve here.” The “root” of cause, he said, is people who are “saddled with bad mortgages.” “By doing that, we would not only be draining the poison from Wall Street…but we would be actually helping the home owners, helping the neighborhoods, helping the towns.”
Holt is pushing a proposal backed by the Center for American Progress to enact a program like FDR’s Great Depression program, the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC). Holt noted that the government put up today’s equivalent of $70 billion. “It stemmed the mortgage crisis of that day,” he said, and it “actually ended up in the black — it ended up in a net return to taxpayers.”
VIDEO: Watch Sarah Palin Read Her Answers In Last Night’s Debate
VIDEO: Watch Sarah Palin Read Her Answers In Last Night’s Debate
For Sarah Palin, last night’s debate was an open-book exam. She spent much of the evening methodically reading and rehearsing answers from “carefully scripted talking points.” Palin’s notes were largely hidden from plain view, resting behind the lectern where she stood.
Because the cable and network television stations did not show a split screen of the debate, most viewers could not see that, during Joe Biden’s answers, Palin spent almost all her time looking down and studiously reading her notes. But viewers did see that when Palin delivered her answers, she would repeatedly glance down to check her talking points.
ThinkProgress has compiled a video documenting some of the instances where it was clear to the audience that Palin was propped up by written responses. Watch a video compilation:
Politico reports that “on at least ten occasions, Palin gave answers that were nonspecific, completely generic, pivoted away from the question at hand, or simply ignored it: on global warming, an Iraq exit strategy, Iran and Pakistan, Iranian diplomacy, Israel-Palestine (and a follow-up), the nuclear trigger, interventionism, Cheney’s vice presidency and her own greatest weakness.”
“The problem for Mrs Palin, however, is that she often seemed to run out of talking points - at which point her answers would devolve into the confusing ‘blizzards of words,’” writes Newsweek’s Andrew Romano.
Rep. Edwards Defends Vote For Bailout, But Admits It’s ‘Not Necessarily The Best Proposal’
Rep. Edwards Defends Vote For Bailout, But Admits It’s ‘Not Necessarily The Best Proposal’
In an interview with ThinkProgress today, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX) discussed why he is supporting the financial bailout package. Last Monday, he was one of the 205 House members to vote for the bailout legislation. Edwards said he’s “disgusted” that Congress now has to deal with the fallout of deregulation, but noting the “potential for a deep recession,” he argued that there is now an urgency to act:
I wish we had more time to look at other alternatives because I’m not convinced this is necessarily the best proposal. What I do know given the potential threat that we could on the edge of an economic cliff, that Democrats in Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid provided more protections for taxpayers so that hopefully in the end they won’t have to pay $700 billion net cost for these assets.
Edwards noted that he was one of only 57 House members who voted against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999. “That’s the very bill that planted the seed for the problems that we’re facing today,” he said. “And I believe if I had prevailed in my vote that day in 1999, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“I don’t want one dime to go to these greedy Wall Street executives that drove their countries into the tank, and in doing so, hurt our entire country’s economy,” Edwards said. “But I do think we need to stabilize the credit markets,” noting that loans for automobiles, car sales, student loans, and home mortgages are freezing up. Watch it:
Edwards said his primary concern in voting for the bill is to stave off a possible recession. “My attitude is if you look at history the people who are hurt the most by recession are not the wealthiest. They can sell one of their seven houses. They can draw down their multi-million dollar bank accounts and use their golden parachutes. … The day to day working folks are usually the first to be laid off.”
McCain flashback: ‘If the price of oil has to go up, then that’s a consequence we would have to suffer.’
McCain flashback: ‘If the price of oil has to go up, then that’s a consequence we would have to suffer.’
Speaking about the need to confront Iran, John McCain said in 2006, “If the price of oil has to go up, then that’s a consequence we would have to suffer.” Matt Duss responds, “So, to sum up: War John McCain supports waging indefinitely = regional destabilization = increased oil prices = higher revenues for regimes John McCain wants to contain. It would be great if he understood these consequences.”
Barbour: In a McCain administration,’ Palin will ‘not have much of a role in foreign policy.’
Barbour: In a McCain administration,’ Palin will ‘not have much of a role in foreign policy.’
During an interview with NPR this morning, John McCain said he routinely turns to Sarah Palin for foreign policy advice. “I’ve turned to her advice many times in the past,” McCain said in response to a question about whether Palin would be one of his foreign policy advisers. But McCain’s message was contradicted by one of his surrogates, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS):
Obviously in a McCain administration she would not have much of a role in foreign policy because of his depth of experience and the people around him. … But in a McCain administration, her role substantively is gonna be primarily – in my opinion – about energy.
Watch video of Barbour’s remarks here.
Palin on which newspapers she reads: ‘Um, all of them.’
Palin on which newspapers she reads: ‘Um, all of them.’
Tonight on the CBS Evening News, host Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin which sources she relies on for her news consumption. Three separate times, Couric tried to elicit a response from Palin about which specific newspapers she reads. Seemingly caught off guard, Palin could not name a single news source:
COURIC: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?
PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —
COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.
PALIN: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.
COURIC: Can you name any of them?
PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.
Watch it:
White House: It’s not a ‘bailout,’ it’s a ‘rescue.’
White House: It’s not a ‘bailout,’ it’s a ‘rescue.’
Countdown to Crawford notes that White House spokesman Tony Fratto took issue today with journalists using the term “bailout” to describe the $700 billion package. “It’s really unfortunate shorthand for a very complicated issue,” he said. The White House prefers the word “rescue.” For insight into why the White House is playing semantic word games, consider what Fred Barnes said last week on Fox News:
We would be in a better situation, or at least the Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson would if this were known as a “rescue” rather than a “bailout.” “Bailout” sounds terrible. Who is for a bailout? A lot of people are for a rescue.
UPDATE: This morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) made a similar a comment:
Well I think what happened is we didn’t convince enough Republicans and Democrats…that this was a rescue package and not a bailout.
Watch it:
UPDATE II: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) today: “When you call it a bailout, nobody’s in favor of a bailout.”
House members who voted ‘yes’ on bailout received 54 percent more from banks/securities firms.
House members who voted ‘yes’ on bailout received 54 percent more from banks/securities firms.
According to research produced by MAPLight.org, House members who voted yes on the proposed bailout package received 54 percent more money from banks and securities than members who voted no:
[O]ver the past five years, banks and securities firms gave an average of $231,877 in campaign contributions to each Representative voting in favor of the bailout, compared with an average of $150,982 to each Representative voting against the bailout – 54 percent more money given to those who voted Yes.
Democrats who voted yes received “an average of $212,700 each, about twice as much as those voting No, $107,993.” Republicans who voted yes “received an average of $273,181 each, 50% more than those voting No, $181,688.”
Are you better off than you were eight years ago?
Are you better off than you were eight years ago?
Marcy Wheeler breaks down the numbers:
DOW January 19, 2001: 10,587.59
DOW September 29, 2008: 10,365.45NASDAQ Jan 19, 2001 = 2770.38
NASDAQ September 29, 2008 = 1983.73CPI, January 19, 2001: 175
CPI, September 29, 2008: 219Dollar exchange with Euro, January 19, 2001: 1.068
Dollar exchange with Euro, September 29, 2008: .695