Looking for new ideas to help the economy? Please don't look to Rep. John Boehner for any new ideas. And this is not from the debate episode of the West Wing.
He said this on FNS:

“If we’re really serious about creating jobs, what we ought to do is, we ought to eliminate the capital gains tax for the next two years on any equities that are purchased,” he said. He argued that cutting the corporate income tax would help boost employment.

As Krugman notes:

The answer is, eliminate the capital gains tax. Now, what was the question?

This brings back a memory: on Sept. 13, 2001, I got frantic calls from staffers on Capitol Hill. They informed me that Republican leaders in the House were trying to use the terrorist attack to ram through, you guessed it, a cut in the capital gains tax.

He's something you can never forget.

Meanwhile, at a panel discussion with Rich Lowry of National Review, I heard the latest argument against the Employee Free Choice Act: now would be a really bad time to make union organizing easier, because it would hurt business confidence in a recession.

Recession, recovery, whatever: it’s always proof that the Bush years should continue forever.

Newt told Hannity that he doesn't want the job last night, but my pal Michael .Steele does

For Republicans seeking a powerful communicator at the top of the RNC, Steele and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have stood out as possible candidates for the job. Gingrich, however, issued a statement Tuesday disavowing any interest in the chairmanship.

One Republican strategist who supports Steele and expects that the Marylander will pursue the chairmanship called him "one of the best communicators that this party has."

"The grassroots base of the party knows who he is and is enthusiastic about him," said the strategist.

Newt helped McCain lose the election with the drill here drill now nonsense and his awful flip flopping bail out advice to McCain. One wonders if he didn't sand bag McCain so he could run in 2012. If you didn't see my post, I ran into Steele at the Denver airport after the Democratic Convention ended and he was all giggles over the Palin choice for VP. He says he's interested in bringing minorities back into their party.

Steele, who has recently been criticizing the GOP for not doing enough to reach out to minorities, says times have changed and the party needs to adapt. But he said the one thing it can't do is change its principles.

It was their principles that got them in trouble. Anyway, good luck with that one.

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After Watching Brandon Marshall almost pull out a white and black glove to celebrate the unity he feels in America with the election of Barack Obama as President at the end of the Cleveland-Denver game after he scored the winning touch down last Thursday, I realized something...

"Barak Obama's election as the 44th president of the United States is a tremendous symbol of unity," Marshall said. "I want to create that symbol of unity because Obama inspires me... In my own way I wanted to pay respect to our nation that we've made so I got a white glove and painted it black, half and half. It's not about "It notabout black power, it's not about white or black, it's about U.S.A. red, white and blue. But Stokely came over and said it's too close a ball game, you might get flagged....

The American Right has a big decision to make as we move forward in the history of America and as Obama takes office. They can revert back to the Lee Atwater school of politics and try to tear this country apart or they can re-brand themselves and start over.

I have a feeling that they will take every opportunity they can to highlight bad behavior by African Americans and other minorities, kind of like FOX News on Election Day, promoting the phony Black Panthers story in Philly that was meant to scare whites. It was the same throughout the 2008 campaign.

So the Right can do just like they did with Willie Horton and nearly every presidential election since -- or they can take the high road, rebuild, move away from the Christian conservatives and become a more moderate party.

I was interviewed by the NY Daily News Sports columnist Michael O'Keefe and we talked about what the impact of Obama's victory on Nov. 4th would have in the sports world.

I knew that his election would spark a very positive reaction, but now I see it will have an even bigger impact. Obama has a chance to reach a new generation of voters through sports figures who were never touched by politics previously. When have you ever heard Tiger Woods make a political statement before?

"I think it's absolutely incredible," Woods told CNBC. "He represents America. He's multiracial. I was hoping it would happen in my lifetime. My father was hoping it would happen in his lifetime, but he didn't get to see it. I'm lucky enough to have seen a person of color in the White House." When asked by the cable news outlet how his father Earl would have reacted to Obama's election as the 44th President of the United States, Woods didn't hesitate. "He would have cried. Absolutely. No doubt about it."

More and more athletes will speak out about how proud they feel that Obama was elected just like Brandon Marshall and Tiger Woods did. We've talked about the youth vote before when discussing actual voter turnout, but Obama really can have an impact I think on future generations of voters with the help of these role models for the young. And yes, they are role models for many kids...

All minorities are standing up tall today, and that is bad business for Republicans. How will they deal with it? I think you already know, but we can all still hope they don't go down that path...

Back in August, Republican presidential candidate John McCain stunned the audience at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum by citing Democratic Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis as one of the "wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration." On Saturday, Lewis offered McCain some sage advice - and a stern warning - about the disgusting turn his increasingly ugly campaign had taken. Unsurprisingly, the supposed maverick shunned his supposed adviser's wisdom that the McCain campaign and its Republican allies were "playing with fire" by "sowing the seeds of hatred and division."

At Warren's Saddleback event with Barack Obama this summer, McCain surprised many by adding Lewis to a troika of trusted advisers featuring the usual suspects General David Petraeus and former Bay CEO Meg Whitman:

WARREN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

MCCAIN: [...] I think John Lewis. John Lewis was at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Had his skull fractured. Continues to serve. Continues to have the most optimistic outlook about America. He can teach us all a lot about the meaning of courage and commitment to causes greater than ourself...

Afterwards, Congressman Lewis responded to the news of his previously unknown role as a Republican presidential adviser by noting:

Continue reading »

   Tallahassee.com:

A Marianna middle-school teacher has been suspended for 10 days without pay after he wrote a racially charged interpretation of a commonly used phrase in the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.

While some parents and community activists were outraged by the actions of Greg Howard, Jackson County NAACP officials want to gather more facts before the group considers taking action. But some parents feel Howard should be fired.

Larry Moore, deputy superintendent for the Jackson County School District, said school officials determined Howard wrote an acronym with an explanation on a dry-erase board in his class Sept. 26 at Marianna Middle School.

It said, "C.H.A.N.G.E. — Come Help A (N-word) Get Elected."  Read on...

The article goes on to say that there were six black students in this idiot's class. If Howard truly did this, he should be fired and had better lawyer up. If the Jackson Co. School District hasn't lawyered up yet, they had better do so as well.   

The Obama campaign has already released an ad using footage from last night's VP debate and they've scored another direct hit.

The ad targets Sarah Palin from last night's debate as she proudly announced John McCain's disastrous health care plan that allows a $5000 tax credit for Americans to purchase health care -- and then strikes right back with Joe Biden's brilliant response, reminding people that in order to offset the credit McCain's plan would tax American's health insurance premiums for the first time in American history. The ULTIMATE bridge to nowhere.  Brilliant! (h/t Jamie)

   Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone. Read on...

I'm not an expert on the economy or Wall St., but this sure looks like an end-around by the Bush administration to give away hundreds of billions of dollars without the approval of Congress. 

As Barney Frank announces that he's pulled together a deal that will get the votes needed to pass through Congress, economists from some of the top schools in the country ask, "What's the hurry?": 

To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:

As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:

1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers' expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.

2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.

3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.

For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.

As the Wall Street meltdown causes John McCain to throw in the towel and George Bush attempts to pull off the biggest heist in history, it's becoming clear that pushing any bailout legislation too far, too fast, could be a total disaster for our country.  The Democrats need to listen to people who really know economics, keep a tight leash on Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, say no to Disaster Capitalism and take the time to get this right the first time. 

The list of economists who signed the letter is below the fold.

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  The implosion of Wall Street last week resulted in a near-death crisis for John McCain's presidential campaign. His post-Palin bump eviscerated, McCain was staggered by the re-emergence of the economy as the dominant issue in the 2008 election. His daily-changing positions revealed that McCain, a man who has repeatedly admitted his ignorance of economics, is struggling to cope with his diminished presidential prospects. Armchair psychologists might call the process John McCain's five stages of grief over the economy.

Denial. McCain's refusal to confront the realities of the failing Bush economy has long roots and was again on display last Monday. McCain, who has frequently described the economic slowdown as "psychological," for at least the 18th time proclaimed the "fundamentals of our economy are strong." As the Dow plummeted over 500 points, McCain reacted to the white-hot crisis on Wall Street by comically announcing his support for a 9/11-style commission to study the causes of and make recommendations to address the meltdown. Willing to kick the can down the road with his since forgotten 9/11 panel idea, McCain also took a head-in-the-sand position in opposing the government rescue of teetering insurance giant AIG:

"We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else."

Anger. Sadly, McCain's denial of the obvious produced an immediate backlash from the press and the public alike. Literally within hours last Monday, McCain reversed course on the underlying strength of the American economy and declared the fundamentals of the economy to be "at great risk."

Then John McCain did what he does best - he got mad.

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  AP:

NEW YORK - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has not held a press conference in nearly four weeks of campaigning, on Tuesday banned reporters from her first meetings with world leaders, allowing access only to photographers and a television crew.

CNN, which was providing the television coverage for news organizations, decided to pull its TV crew, effectively denying Palin the high visibility she had sought.

The campaign told the TV producer, print and wire reporters in the press pool that follows the Alaska governor that they would not be admitted with the photographers and camera crew taken in to photograph the meetings. At least two news organizations, including The Associated Press, objected and were told that the decision was not subject to discussion. Read on...

Bravo for CNN, but it would have been nice if the AP would have followed up to find out which "tv crew" would actually be allowed in. She's not ready and it's painfully obvious. The McCain campaign desperately wants to portray Palin as capable and ready to lead, but they're scared to death to let her in front of reporters who could easily expose her.

  The Washington Post:

Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain's campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions. Read on...

Barack Obama and Joe Biden need to jump on this story and keep hammering away until the corporate media can no longer ignore it.  The U.S. stands on the brink of the next Great Depression thanks to Bush/McCain deregulation policies and now we find out that the man who runs the McCain campaign was paid handsomely to lobby for these fatal policies on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even as he repeatedly tries to tie Obama to those companies. Voters need to know how we got into this mess and who is responsible. It was John McCain, his elite lobbyist cronies and the Republican party. I agree with John:

There should be a campaign to demand that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, give ever penny back to the American people. There had better be an ad about this out by COB Monday, and calls for Davis' resignation. 

The McCain campaign thinks we're a nation full of whiners and cowards who should just STFU, take a second or third job and cancel our vacations and be thankful for what we're fed. The lack of respect is stunning -- is this the kind of leader you want?  

    Charges are being dropped against over two dozen journalists, including Amy Goodman and her two producers, arrested during the crackdown on protests at the Republican convention in St. Paul. Goodman's charge of "obstructing the legal process" has been dropped, as have felony riot charges against her colleagues Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Other dropped charges are mainly for "unlawful assembly".

The city's mayor had a truly gag-worthy Orwellian statement on the subject:

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said Friday that the city attorney's office recommended against prosecuting reporters for the misdemeanor charge.

"This decision reflects the values we have in St. Paul to protect and promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press," Coleman said in a statement.

He added, "At the scene, the police did their duty in protecting public safety. In this decision, we are serving the public's interest to maintain the integrity of our democracy, system of justice and freedom of the press."

One has to wonder if this was the plan all along, and the real intention was simply to inhibit reporting of abuses against protestors. Or maybe they're hoping that with the reporters out of court, the media won't be so interested in covering the 800 or so other arrests. With over forty journalists arrested, there should surely be at least some investigation of police officers involved for trumping up charges too:

Upon learning of the news, Democracy Now! Host, Amy Goodman said, “It’s good that these false charges have finally been dropped, but we never should have been arrested to begin with. These violent and unlawful arrests disrupted our work and had a chilling effect on the reporting of dissent. Freedom of the press is also about the public’s right to know what is happening on their streets. There needs to be a full investigation of law enforcement activities during the convention.”

But I'll bet that won't happen.

With the anniversary of the September 11 attacks once again upon us, Bush's Law of Bin Laden is also again on display. That is, in the Bush playbook, the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden is directly proportional to the threat to the President's own political standing.

At the White House on Wednesday, press secretary Dana Perino played down the Bin Laden danger to her lame-duck boss' flatline political standing, if not to the American people:

Q: But Osama bin Laden is the one that - you keep talking about his lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 -

PERINO: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and he's sitting in jail right now.

But back in January 2006, President Bush was singing a much different tune. Trying to fight back against the growing public outcry over his illegal domestic wiretapping program, President Bush used the Bin Laden bogeyman during remarks at the National Security Agency. Bush lashed out at his critics:

All I would ask them to do is listen to the words of Osama bin Laden and take him seriously. When he says he's going to hurt the American people again, or try to, he means it. I take it seriously, and the people of NSA take it seriously.

Continue reading »

  In a disturbing expose Sunday, the McClatchy papers joined the growing list of press, pundits and politicians raising a red flag about John McCain's out-of-control temper. Following on the heels of the devastating revelations from the Washington Post in April, McClatchy documents many of the tantrums, outbursts and eruptions that continue to call McCain's presidential temperament into question. And as Mitt Romney's campaign revealed in January, those McCain tirades are directed at friend and foe alike.

Starting with an f-bomb hurled at GOP colleague John Cornyn, McClatchy details McCain's long history of explosions, a record which led Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran to conclude "the thought of (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine":

There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: McCain pushing a woman in a wheelchair, trying to get an Arizona Republican aide fired from three different jobs, berating a young GOP activist on the night of his own 1986 Senate election and many more.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to John McCain's white hot temper.

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LA Times:

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs." 

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger. Read on...

John McCain chose party over country by selecting Palin, a move that eerily reflects George Bush's reckless style of governing. The McCain camp may think they can fool women voters, but Steinem does a fantastic job of shredding the idea that Hillary Clinton supporters would automatically be wooed into voting for a woman who is her polar opposite and unfit to serve. Quite simply put, Palin isn't qualified to carry HRC's briefcase, let alone be considered her political equal.

Lets break this down in the most basic of terms -- Sarah Palin is a Bush Republican -- say it loud and say it often. I grind my teeth every time I hear someone in the corporate media tout Palin as a candidate of change. A change of gender does not equal a change in policy or direction for America.  John McCain may consider Palin to be his "political soul mate," but unfortunately for him, her heart belongs to George W. Bush.