Have you seen this? Obama really needs to take a stand on this ASAP. He could demonstrate that he is more thorough, thoughtful, and more willing to take a stand than John McCain is. People on the streets that I talk to canvassing are SO hungry for this. Barack has to stand up to specific things like this to show people that he means business and is more than just fancy talking points. We MUST work to get Section 8 removed from the bailout bill ASAP!! Email your congressmen today. (See more info below) Thanks for all your work everyone!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html
Dirty Secret Of The Bailout: Thirty-Two Words That None Dare Utter September 22, 2008 02:06 PM
A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety: Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable. Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect: The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...] The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into U.S. corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review. Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog, Balkinization. But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish to make the package seem more aesthetically pleasing, at which point, they'll likely roll over and pass the bill. Neither candidate, John McCain or Barack Obama, seem all that amenable toward the bailout, but neither have either demonstrated that they are willing to risk their candidacies to do much more than exploit the issue for electoral purposes. Sunday morning came and went, with Paulson traipsing dutifully from studio to studio, facing nary a question on Section 8. Front page articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal detail the wranglings, but make no mention of this section of the legislation. On TV, cable news networks are stuck in the fog of the ongoing presidential campaign. Throughout the coverage, one catches a whiff of what seems like substantive pushback on this power grab, but it largely amounts to a facsimile of journalistic diligence. Most note, in general terms, that the bailout represents a set of "broad powers" that will be granted to the Department of the Treasury. Yet the coverage offsets these concerns through the constant hyping of the White House's overall message of "urgency." But one cannot overstate this: Section 8 is a singularly transformative sentence of economic policy. It transfers a significant amount of power to the Executive Branch, while walling off any avenue for oversight, and offering no guarantees in return. And if the Democrats end up content with winning a few slight concessions, they risk not putting a stop-payment on the real "blank check" - the one in which they allow the erosion of their own powers. Over in the Senate, Christopher Dodd has proposed a bailout legislation of his own, which critically calls for "an oversight board that not only includes the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the SEC, but congressionally appointed, non-governmental officials" and would require the President to appoint an "independent inspector general to investigate the Treasury asset program." In Dodd's legislation, Section 8 is effectively stripped from the bill. Nevertheless, the fact that Section 8 of the Paulson plan seems to strike few as a de facto dealbreaker can and should astound. The failure of Congress to hold the line on this point would be truly embarrassing. But if we make it through this week with nobody in the......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAzBxFaio1I&feature=related
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
An Iranian flag flies outside the building containing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.
White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.
Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.
"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.
The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.
He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. Watch Hersh discuss what he says are the administration's plans for Iran »
"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.
"The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops.
"I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said.
Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran.
He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people.
The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.
Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at providing civilian electric power, and refuses to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment work.
U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons.
Israel, which is believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers.
The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, Iran, a U.S. military official said.
In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.
Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve."
"Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers
We need to get these letters out right away! The letters usually have a lead time of about a week, so we really need to get these out in the next few days. Here are a few tips for getting going on the letters:1. Follow up to an article the newspaper haspublished. Peruse the online Politics and Opinionsection of the newspaper, and find something to replyto (such as an article or prior letter to the editor).This is probably one of the surest ways to getpublished. This lets them know that you are invovledin their paper, and not just blindly submittinglettters. 2. Try to be creative in getting your letterpublished. Some ways to make it stand out are to sharemoving or personal stories that you have observed,avoid cliches too much, make it memorable. 3. Observe the word limits set by the paper (usually around 200 words).
4. Consider focusing on one issue, such astransparency or healthcare, or the national debt, thatyou are especially passionate about. Don't feel theneed to cover everything. 5. Submit the letter to the editor by email. Have afriend look over the email if you have time, or submitit to me if you would like, but don't agonize overerrors too much, they have editors to check forspelling and that sort of thing.6. The most important thing to do is just get theletter submitted! We can reach over 1,000,000 peopleat a time this way. Let me know if you need any helpwith ideas or editing. 7. Also, consider posting comments to the threads onthe political/editorial sections of the newspaper'sonline version to get people interested in Obama and refer them to Obama's website. Thanks for VOLUNTEERING! YES WE CAN!Brittany
Here is a list of the top 10 Newspapers in Texas. Each newspaper has a link directly to the page where you can submit your letter. Let's get writing! Please let me know when you have sent off a letter, so that I can post how many letters we get submitted and published. YES WE CAN do this together! Look at how many people we can reach!
Houston Chronicle - Houston - (Pop. 1,953,631)
http://www.chron.com/news/opinion/
Dallas Morning News - Dallas - (Pop. 1,188,580)
http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgi
Austin American-Statesman - Austin - (Pop. 656,562)
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/opinions/entries/letters_to_the_editor/
El Paso Times - El Paso - (Pop. 563,662) http://www.elpasotimes.com/formnewsroom
Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Fort Worth - (Pop. 534,694) http://startelegrameditwriters.typepad.com/letters_to_the_startelegr/
Corpus Christi Caller-Times - Corpus Christi - (Pop. 277,454)
http://web.caller.com/commcentral/email_ed.html
Laredo Morning Times - Laredo - (Pop. 176,576)
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.asp?brd=2290&pag=460&dept_id=569365
Amarillo Globe-News - Amarillo - (Pop. 173,627)
http://www.amarillo.com/opinion/
Brownsville Herald - Brownsville - (Pop. 139,722)
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/sections/viewpoints/
Abilene Reporter-News - Abilene - (Pop. 115,930)
http://publish.reporternews.com/
to find out how to get started. I have all the tips, contact info, and support that you need. Share your personal story or whatever inspires you about Barack. Just write down what you already tell your friends and family. We can do this together! The most powerful letters will be local ones from Texas, but anyone can help out in the effort. It would be especially awesome if we could get a letter in Spanish too!
Join the group:
or email me at bmann@gmu.edu for more info! We can do this together!
to find out how to get started. I have all the tips, contact info, and support that you need. Share your personal story or whatever inspires you about Barack. Just write down what you already tell your friends and family. Other members have volunteered to help with drafts too, if you are stuck. We can do this together! The most powerful letters will be local ones from Texas, but anyone can help out in the effort. It would be especially awesome if we could get a letter in Spanish too!
YES WE CAN!
Let's get letters supporting Obama to the top 10 Texas Newspapers by Monday! Look at how many people we can reach with just one letter. The possibilities are huge. Please join the group Texas Letters to the Editor Group!! to find out how to get started. I have all the tips, contact info, and support that you need. Share your personal story or whatever inspires you about Barack. Just write down what you aleady tell your friends and family. We can do this together!
Houston Chronicle - Contact PageHouston - (Pop. 1,953,631)
Dallas Morning News - Contact PageDallas - (Pop. 1,188,580)
Austin American-Statesman - Contact PageAustin - (Pop. 656,562)
El Paso Times - Contact PageEl Paso - (Pop. 563,662)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Contact PageFort Worth - (Pop. 534,694)
Corpus Christi Caller-Times - Contact PageCorpus Christi - (Pop. 277,454)
Laredo Morning Times - Contact PageLaredo - (Pop. 176,576)
Amarillo Globe-News - Contact PageAmarillo - (Pop. 173,627)
Brownsville Herald - Contact PageBrownsville - (Pop. 139,722)
Abilene Reporter-News - Contact PageAbilene - (Pop. 115,930)
Can anyone help me find out more info about the Maine caucus rules?
I am phone banking, and people keep asking me questions that I do not know the answer to. For example, can you caucus if you are not registered to vote, or if you are registered as an independent? Thanks!
Brittany
SCHIP expansion is a waste of money. It serves people at 300 to 400 times the povery level, AKA - people who can afford health care!! That is, if they choose to spend money on healthcare rather than SUVs and mcmansion, and sony playstayions, etc. I should know, because my husband and I fall within the range of people who would be covered by an expanded schip, and we can afford health care.
Of course, there are some people who have serious medical problems and are denied by typical insurance - but these people are already covered under medicaid. If you are denied insurance and have a significant disability or impairment and cannot pay for your care - get medicaid! It will cover you!
This legislation will end up costing us buckoooooooos in beuracracy and will decrease fiscal and healthcare responsibility. Stop and think people! Stop whining and starting saving money and being responsible, and expecting others to do so as well. Health care is not free or cheap, and if we want this best out there, then we all have to make sacrifices to pay for it. See the following for some true, and comical insight!http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/10/17/how-to-argue-against-schip/
