Who will cover my my $20 buy in for the poker tournament tonight if my pocket aces run up against a set?

How much do I need to eat to be too big to fail?

At least I know I'll be able to buy arrows for my daughter without those pesky tariffs.

As a longtime supporter of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Development Act, commonly known as "county payments," Wu was encouraged to see its inclusion in the Senate bailout bill...

And if you buy my mint Hummer H1, I will include a set of genuine laser-cut stainless steel steak knives at no additional cost!

Wait, there's more. Act now and you will receive a second set of steak knives absolutely free! Pay shipping and handling only.

DeFazio had it right. I think we are all screwed. Dodd and Frank, come on, these guys need to step down. Is CountryWide paying off my loan??

Call me a cynic, but I beleive the fix was in. The Dems allowed certain of them to vote no after the majority was secured. I guess that is politics. I was hoping some alternative would prevail.

Jack Robertrs wrote:

...something is wrong.

On this, Jack, we are in complete accord.

I am really confused........the bailout vote fails and Dow down 778........the bailout vote passes and Dow down 135. WTF. I thought the bailout was supposed to be our economy's saviour. WTF. Why do I feel like I just got screwed?

I know folks around here like to blame the GOP for all things shitty, but the credit for this huge pile of poop should go to the Democratic Party, who voted Yes in much larger numbers. And how come the Dow is still falling?

However, my hat goes off to DeFazio for trying to do the right thing.

Seeing as Wu voted for this POS, can someone provide me with a compelling reason as to why I shouldn't vote for Joel Haugen, the (un)Republican, instead?

http://www.joelhaugenforcongress.com/index.html

It looks like he's just, if not more, progressive than Wu.

I'm serious. I've never voted for a R in my life, but this bill was just ridiculous and to pretend that "This was the only option so we had to do it" is both insulting and asinine. Why didn't Wu just vote 'No' and support DeFazio?

Actually, if you cannot bring yourself to vote for Wu, I suggest either H. Joe Tabor(L) or Chris Henry(P), both great guys and friends of mine.

Thanks for the tip, Tom. I'll check them out.

I hate to admit it, but DeFazio, Blumenauer and Wyden did the right thing. The system, however, is clearly and hopelessly corrupt, and we need to bring it down.

"Instead of responding to this meltdown by updating regulatory institutions or investing in job-creating infrastructure, the bailout proposes giving one unelected appointee - the Treasury secretary - complete authority to dole out $700 billion to bank executives, with little oversight. And here's the scary part: That lurch toward dictatorship was motivated not just by crony corruption, but also by a deeper ideological shift.

We now face market forces uninhibited by democratic governance - Chinese dictators and Saudi princes can move trillions of dollars without so much as a press release. This bailout, marketed as a speed enhancer, is an attempt to discard democracy's checks and balances and pantomime that kind of autocracy."

(David Sirota, Saying 'No Deal' to this New Deal)

If this does not pan out well with the economy recovering and the taxpayers getting reimbursed, I can see it as being Wu's last term in office. And a lot of other Reps & Sens as well.

A nice thought but not likely to happen when registered Democrats and Republicans habitually and mindlessly vote for whatever crook their party leaders give them.

The Center for Responsive Politics has articles on the correlation of money to votes on the bailout scam in the House (first vote) and in the Senate.

Only in a nation with most of the people asleep at the political switch could politicians such as Nancy Pelosi and others get away with crap like this:

(1) After Chris Dodd's and Barney Frank's committees dressed up the Bush Administration's proposal for ripping off the Treasury it went to the House where it was turned down by a small majority. Some members admitted they thought it was a bad bill but they voted for it anyway.

(2) Over to the Senate. Many agreed the Senate bill was flawed but like their counterparts in the House they voted for it anyway while adding insult to injury with lots of pork tacked on. Bernie Sanders proposed a very good amendment, but that was, naturally, ignored.

(3) Back to the House where leaders commented on how the first bill was unacceptable but nevertheless saw fit to compliment its authors (Dodd, Frank and accomplices) on what a great job they had been doing. Can you believe that? The people who handed the House and the American people a piece of shit were given a you're-doing-a-heck-of-a-job-Brownie award.

The new version voted on in the House today was claimed to be an improvement despite the pork added to it and ultimately the deficit. Again, some members casting "Yea" votes recognized the new bill was flawed, but they voted for it anyway.

None of this should come as a surprise. The people who created and were responsible for this "crisis" are the same people who came up with the "cure." In other words, the arsonists are in charge of the fire department. As the eminent Joe Lieberman once said, "Is this a great country, or what?"

A second piece on the bailout by Roberts:

Why Paulson's Plan is a Fraud By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

I'm glad that both Wyden and Smith were successful at repealing the wooden arrow excise tax.

If you have to pay taxes on wooden arrows designed for children, the terrorists win.

More proof Wu ain't worth us. What would a physician know about sustainable economics? Not one thing in the bill to beef up prosecution. Yeah, a big victory limiting the golden parachutes. The fix was in on alternative compensation before this scheme ever took flight.

Meanwhile, we're left with just complete coincidence that the Watergate bag man, never investigated after a bipartisan committee decided the nation needed healing, was Bush senior, the method to hide the money he used was repeated by Neal Bush during the S&L robbery and that Shrub is the sitting President that just spent 3/4 of a trillion of your dollars to buy up loans that YOU didn't make because YOU knew you couldn't afford it.

BTW, the bail-out really can't work. It focuses only on the "junk loans". There's a lot of just a little funny loans that are scraping buy, but were funded with variable interest rates. You forget China, basically, owns our debt. They're not going to pay for that krap. The Fed will HAVE to raise TBond rates. That will cause the base rate to go up, with the prime, and all those adjustable mortgages. Then, the iffy loans become the new junk loans. The rot is systemic. The houses weren't worth what you paid. There is no responsible way to borrow money to pay for something that is being sold to you on credit at 3x what it should cost, only because there's a queue of idiots trying to to the same thing!

And all fading empires go through this kind of housing/banking crisis. Check out fin de siecle Vienna for a stark mirror image!

Ask yourselves: If it was really this easy to help homeowners instead of Wall Steet, don't you think Barney Frank might have figured this out?

If the defaulting homeowners had outbid Wall Street for the benefit of Barney Frank's powers then he would have taken care of them instead. Follow the money.

Jack,

I very much doubt that Paul Craig Roberts means that the government should buy people's houses for them. Indemnify means "secure against loss", as in preventing foreclosure. Paying off their mortgage would be traded for a new mortgage on reasonable terms.

If he meant buying houses and giving them to their occupants, then I would agree with you that this is not sustainable.

So much rage directed at Wu, so little directed at Obama and the Democratic leadership. Why is that?

Sure was a good idea keeping impeachment off the table all those years, wasn't it?

The last defense of the constitution was a Democratic Congress fulfilling its oath to uphold the Constitution if the President broke his.

I'll bet this bill stretches way beyond $700 billion in a hurry.

Jack Roberts wrote:

The problem with your interpretation, Tom, is that this is basically what the current bill does, with this exception: Instead of buying the mortgages for 50 cents on the dollar, the government would be paying the full price for the mortgage and then hoping that all of them will be paid off or suffer a loss.

But Jack, there is another very important difference. The current bailout does nothing to prevent foreclosures and homeless families.

And increased protections for those with more money in the banking system. It struck me as a deal with more built in for those at the upper end of "middle class" and nothing attended to down where the most worry resides.

Comedic relief: interview on NPR with a guy who sweeps the floors on Wall Street. He's pretty pissed at us for being pissed at them. And is dismissive of our ability to assess where blame might lie. Without him and Wall Street, our way of life will grind to a halt, and, in his deeply educated estimation, CONGRESS is to blame! And us, too, indirectly.

I had to turn the sound down till I recovered.

I am glad the Peter and Earl voted against this bailout package that started from removal some of the restrictions of the Glass-Steagall Act from the passing of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act hmm who signed that in too law? and who voted for it? Forget what I just stated since that is part of the past. Furthermore we just can not learn from past mistakes-- the S&L bailout years of Bush Sr term.

I truly think we need to truly look back at every term's mistakes and start fixing them and not finger point at he or her to pass the buck.

This is yet another critical issue, with food and fuel prices, global warming, the Mideast and Russia, etc etc etc--we just need to step back and FIX THE USA and let the others clean up their own house's problems or neighbor's problems.

I am glad the Peter and Earl voted against this bailout package that started from removal some of the restrictions of the Glass-Steagall Act from the passing of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act hmm who signed that in too law? and who voted for it? Forget what I just stated since that is part of the past. Furthermore we just can not learn from past mistakes-- the S&L bailout years of Bush Sr term.

I truly think we need to truly look back at every term's mistakes and start fixing them and not finger point at he or her to pass the buck.

This is yet another critical issue, with food and fuel prices, global warming, the Mideast and Russia, etc etc etc--we just need to step back and FIX THE USA and let the others clean up their own house's problems or neighbor's problems.

<hr/>