I'll be in DC and in the Inaugural Parade as part of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Group. Would be great to heae from other campaign workers who'll be in or at the parade!
Joan McKniff, mckniffj@yahoo.com, Sarasota, formerly ARS Paris
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=5301
How wonderful it was to come together at the Bridge Walk. It was inspiring to be with other like minded citizens...I hope that we can do this more frequently. For example, a walk for change - it's time to end the war, close Guantanemo, end the Patriot Act and reinstate habeas corpus.
If the Bush tax breaks for the top 5% aren't repealed - not just allowed to expire - our fight has been in vain. We need to select issues and show the public how to protest...demonstrate...show we care.
Dedicate everything you do, everything you have done, to Toot, Barack's Grandma. She just made her transition, according to CNN, one day prior to the election.
Send blessings and prayers that this rare and wonderful woman passed, confident that her grandson WILL MAKE HISTORY.
My love goes out to the entire Obama family...
When I am Poll Watching tomorrow - it will be for Toot, in her memory and the CHANGE she KNEW IN HER HEART that her grandson would bring about.
Namaste.
Dear Tara,I'm working with Progress Florida in the hope that you will forward this email to any friends, family or co-workers who may still be undecided on the presidential race.Recently, my father gave me an envelope full of press clippings, which detail the years my cousin, then-Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain, was imprisoned in North Vietnam. John and I are related through our grandmothers. Katherine Vaulx McCain and Huetta Vaulx Boles, both of Fayetteville, Arkansas, were sisters. When John threw his hat in the ring in 2000, my father and I were both very proud and encouraged, and not just because he's our relative. This was the first politician in a long time who, on a national stage, was saying things like, "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer-reaches of American politics." Jump ahead to the campaign my cousin is currently running. Clearly, a lot can change in eight years. Where is the straight-talking, commonsense John McCain of 2000? I'm afraid he is long gone, replaced by a desperate version of himself who seems to contradict nearly everything he once stood for. What becomes apparent in his ideological about-face is just how out of touch my cousin John really is with America's working families. A part of me is made very sad to write this email. As I've said, my family has followed John's life and career with no absence of pride. But like many Americans of good conscience, my father and I can no longer consider voting for our own cousin.Instead, we will be voting for the hope and real change embodied by Barack Obama this Election Day. Sincerely,Adam Vaulx Boles
I have been working so hard I CRIED THROUGH BARACK'S ENTIRE SPEECH! (In fact, I'm still teary - not good as I must GOTV in two hours!)
Of course I yelled & hooted alot as well...I may have been the last person to enter Ed Smith Stadium - I had to wait until everyone else was in & seated or STANDING...!!!
I cannot believe I have a voice left, as I was one of the volunteers GREETING, THANKING & EXPLAINING the rules to thousands of people. AMAZING.
There is a huge difference in hearing his words in person, rather than on the telly or videos. It was so impactful, I do not have the proper words...HE SPOKE TO THE VERY DEPTHS OF ME, AS AN INDIVIDUAL.
The attendees were amazing - polite, happy, excited! When I yelled that WE ARE MAKING HISTORY, the applause was wonderful. Everyone apparently knew that this was a paramount experience!
Great thanks to all who made this event possible!!!
This DOES NOT EVEN COME CLOSE TO DESCRIBING THE EXPERIENCE...
A blog entry on www.barackobama.com supporting Palin? Say again? I'm for Obama all the way. My vote has been cast in early voting in Florida, my loyalities are true. But now I hear how McCain's senior campaign advisors are calling Palin a "diva" and "whack job." Excuse me? This is McCain's pick, and the Governor of Alaska. While I don't believe Palin is ready for the job of vice president, much less president, and I don't agree with most of her positions, I still have to say wait a minute.
How can the McCain campaign top advisors (as reported by most news stations) call her such names? She's not a stupid woman; she succeeded on her own terms and with her own ambition. She didn't have admirals in her family, or prior legislators, or any one that appears to have connections. She has accomplished quite a bit for any politician, be they woman or man. True, Palin's interviews have been disasterous, but when you've been force fed line after line from the campaign handlers, instead of trusting in the voice of the woman they picked to be the candidate for this office, its likely most of us would fail too. Like most people, when forced to be inauthentic, it comes off as a sham and interpreted as false or even worse, stupid. While I've heard others said disparging words about her, I have said, "she's intelligent or she wouldn't have gotten this far," the problem has been in the campaigns trust and support of Gov. Palin, which appears to be non-existant since they have refused most one-on-one interviews.
So to hear McCain's advisors call her "Diva" and "whack job" I have to say something. Why? Because I worked for these same men making these claims and know first hand how they like to control all attitudes and try to destroy lives with their careless labels. I worked for Charlie Black and Paul Manafort and Roger Stone - and frankly can hear them saying "diva" or "whack job" about me, about Palin, and frankly, about any woman that actually tried to have a voice about the campaign, about politics, about anything of relevance to the issues we face today. Women are for subjugation for the likes of Black, Manafort and Stone, and by calling Palin "Diva" and "whack job" that's exactly what they are trying to do: put the woman in her place. Or as I looked up on dictionary.com: 1. to bring under complete control or subjection; conquer; master; 2. to make submissive or subservient; enslave.
When I heard these slurs I was interested in seeing who was considered a McCain "senior advisor" and how many women were working as "senior advisors" and found the best, most recently updated list at: http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/mccain/mccainorg.html I think who is on the campaign is telling because there are few women in senior positions. Telling because I believe it is indicative of the value this campaign places on the opinions of women. Telling because the McCain campaign may have selected its first woman V.P. nominee, but has failed to support this idea of equality by equally filling its ranks with women. Telling, because usually as so goes the campaign, so goes the Administration.
If my vote for Obama was at least to keep the likes of these lobbyist - the Blacks, the Manaforts, the Stones - the men who subjugate by derisive comments - to keep them away from the center of power, then I will deem that a success. This name calling of Palin by top McCain advisors is disgraceful and just like in the Land of Oz, indicative of the kind of people behind McCain's curtain, making the smoke, pulling the levers of power, and giving voice and action to McCain's decisions. These same men would either be right in the White House with McCain, or lobbying at his door the day of his inaugeration seeking pay-back for themselves and their clients.
So its time for change in Washington, D.C. Its time to vote Obama.
Early Voting for the entire state of Florida has just been extended.
Every Early Vote location in Florida will now be every day from 7am-7pm up through November 2.
Please pass along this great news to everyone you know who will be voting in Florida. Click here to find your nearest early vote location.
Here's the release:
GOVERNOR CRIST EXTENDS EARLY VOTING HOURS ~~ ~Ensures maximum number of Floridians can exercise right to vote~ ~~October 28, 2008Contact:GOVERNOR'S PRESS OFFICE(850) 488-5394TALLAHASSEE - Governor Charlie Crist today signed Executive Order 08-217, extending the hours for early voting during the current General Election. Effective immediately, early voting sites will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., through Friday, October 31, 2008, and for a total of 12 hours between 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 1, and 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 2, 2008. "I have spoken with the Secretary of State and members of the Florida Legislature and have concluded that it is always the right thing to do to give voters every opportunity to cast a ballot," Governor Crist said. "I have a responsibility to the voters of our state to ensure that the maximum number of citizens can participate in the electoral process, and that every person can exercise the right to vote." Prior to the 2008 General Election, Florida has seen historic numbers of Floridians registering to vote for the first time. In addition, record numbers of voters have chosen to cast a ballot during early voting. Early voting began on October 20 and runs through November 2. Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours per day on each weekday, and for a total of eight hours during both weekends during the early voting period. Floridians can contact their county's Supervisor of Elections for dates, times and locations of early voting. Florida voters can also request absentee ballots to be mailed to them until October 29. Please see the attached Executive Order 08-217. STATE OF FLORIDA OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER 08-217 WHEREAS, early voting is scheduled to end November 2, 2008; and WHEREAS, early voting turnout has already reached record levels and is forecast to continue with record turnout. There are only 267 early voting sites throughout the state and long lines have formed at many of the early voting sites; and WHEREAS, a historic number of Floridians have registered to vote for the first time in this election; and WHEREAS, new voting equipment is being used in 15 Florida counties; WHEREAS, as a result of this unique combination of circumstances resulting from the historic voter turnout in this election, there is a possibility that election officials will be unable to conduct an orderly election, and thus residents in our state could be deprived of a meaningful opportunity to vote; andWHEREAS, because of the existing and continuing possibility of an emergency occurring before or during the regularly scheduled election, and in order to ensure maximum citizen participation in the electoral process, and provide a safe and orderly procedure for persons seeking to exercise their right to vote;NOW, THEREFORE, I, CHARLIE CRIST, as Governor of Florida, by virtue of the authority vested in me by Article IV, Section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution, by the Florida Elections Emergency Act, and by all other applicable laws, issue the following Executive Order, to take immediate effect:I hereby declare that, based on the above-described conditions, a state of emergency exists. It is hereby found and declared to be necessary to extend the voting hours during early voting. Accordingly, I order the Supervisors of Elections to open early voting sites from 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. through October 31, 2008 and open early voting sites for a total of twelve (12) hours between 7 a.m. November 1, 2008 and 7 p.m. November 2, 2008.IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Florida to be affixed, at Tallahassee, the Capitol, this 28th day of October, 2008. GOVERNORATTEST:SECRETARY OF STATE
GOVERNOR CRIST EXTENDS EARLY VOTING HOURS
~~ ~Ensures maximum number of Floridians can exercise right to vote~ ~~
October 28, 2008
Contact:
GOVERNOR'S PRESS OFFICE(850) 488-5394
TALLAHASSEE - Governor Charlie Crist today signed Executive Order 08-217, extending the hours for early voting during the current General Election. Effective immediately, early voting sites will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., through Friday, October 31, 2008, and for a total of 12 hours between 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 1, and 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 2, 2008.
"I have spoken with the Secretary of State and members of the Florida Legislature and have concluded that it is always the right thing to do to give voters every opportunity to cast a ballot," Governor Crist said. "I have a responsibility to the voters of our state to ensure that the maximum number of citizens can participate in the electoral process, and that every person can exercise the right to vote."
Prior to the 2008 General Election, Florida has seen historic numbers of Floridians registering to vote for the first time. In addition, record numbers of voters have chosen to cast a ballot during early voting.
Early voting began on October 20 and runs through November 2. Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours per day on each weekday, and for a total of eight hours during both weekends during the early voting period. Floridians can contact their county's Supervisor of Elections for dates, times and locations of early voting.
Florida voters can also request absentee ballots to be mailed to them until October 29.
Please see the attached Executive Order 08-217.
STATE OF FLORIDA
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER 08-217
WHEREAS, early voting is scheduled to end November 2, 2008; and
WHEREAS, early voting turnout has already reached record levels and is forecast to continue with record turnout. There are only 267 early voting sites throughout the state and long lines have formed at many of the early voting sites; and
WHEREAS, a historic number of Floridians have registered to vote for the first time in this election; and
WHEREAS, new voting equipment is being used in 15 Florida counties;
WHEREAS, as a result of this unique combination of circumstances resulting from the historic voter turnout in this election, there is a possibility that election officials will be unable to conduct an orderly election, and thus residents in our state could be deprived of a meaningful opportunity to vote; and
WHEREAS, because of the existing and continuing possibility of an emergency occurring before or during the regularly scheduled election, and in order to ensure maximum citizen participation in the electoral process, and provide a safe and orderly procedure for persons seeking to exercise their right to vote;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, CHARLIE CRIST, as Governor of Florida, by virtue of the authority vested in me by Article IV, Section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution, by the Florida Elections Emergency Act, and by all other applicable laws, issue the following Executive Order, to take immediate effect:
I hereby declare that, based on the above-described conditions, a state of emergency exists. It is hereby found and declared to be necessary to extend the voting hours during early voting. Accordingly, I order the Supervisors of Elections to open early voting sites from 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. through October 31, 2008 and open early voting sites for a total of twelve (12) hours between 7 a.m. November 1, 2008 and 7 p.m. November 2, 2008.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Florida to be affixed, at Tallahassee, the Capitol, this 28th day of October, 2008.
GOVERNOR
ATTEST:
SECRETARY OF STATE
Need an article or video to convince an undecided voter to vote for Obama/Biden?MakeFloridaCount.com archives articles, videos and other organizing resources so that people making calls and going door to door can have easy access to the latest material. Organizers should look carefully at the left hand column of the site for useful resources. Here's a breakdown of some of what's there.Character Counts - What to expect from Barack Obama * The New Yorker endorsement * Press Conference on State of the Economy * Chicago Jews on their experience with Obama * Obama's speech on race and reaction to Rev. Wright Uproar * SFGate - Obama profile * NYTimes Obama archive
Character Counts - What to expect from John McCain * John McCain's Rage * NYTimes - Politics of Attack * Keating Economics * The Straight Talk Express (exposed) * NYTimes - McCain lifelong gambler * George Will - Can a dismaying temperment be fixed? * Nicholas Kristof - Impulsive, Impetuous, ImpatientNew organizing resources are added daily - MakeFloridaCount.com.
In unity.
Barbara Myers
please see extended post for more resources.
Barack Obama if given the chance will bring this Nation together like never before in history. We as a Nation can move forward into this century with the assurance that our President cares about each of us.
Some years ago I saw this amazing young man speak during a television interview and I was very impressed with what he said about a war we should not be going into with a Country that had not harmed our Country. Later I found myself watching CSPAN rather than other shows and I began learning who was at the podium and what they were speaking about. Barack Obama encouraged me to pay attention to what our elected officials were doing in the Senate and Congress.
When he spoke at the Democratic Convention in 2004 I got goosebumps. It was the same feeling that I felt when I watched J.F. Kennedy some years before when I was about nineteen or twenty. No politician had captured my attention and later my heart like Barack Obama has.
He grew up like my own son grew up in a single parent family without having a Dad in the household and not having a Dad play a role in his early development. But having a single working Mom who struggled and relied upon her Parents to help fill in where the Government could not help. Though I was less fortunate in having divorced Parents who were unable to offer moral and financial support during a time when I was struggling early on, and my little son and I fell through the cracks of a system that did not have a safety net during the early 1960s for single Mothers, Barack's Mother was blessed with wonderful Parents who not only helped she and her children survive but they set an example of a strong family unit that her son, Barack and his sister could model themselves after. She was a strong woman who pulled herself up by her bootstraps and reared her children to be fine, intelligent, well educated adults.
Unlike many people in my own family and circle of friends, I bought Barack Obama's first book about his journey to learn about his family heritage, for I had done the same thing in researching my own roots. While some found his book to provide passages and sentences that they could twist into all out lies I read and understood what this young man was trying to say. And he revealed to me what a great man he was, is and can continue to be. His Family, his Country are everything to him and he will do our Country proud.
This old woman can't be fooled by the lies, smears and the political power behind the Republican Power Brokers. God bless Barack Obama, his Family and his Party.
(Reuters) - The presidential candidates Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama responded on Saturday to the Bush administration's $700 billion proposal for rescuing financial markets that was submitted to Congress.
The plan's centerpiece would permit the Treasury to purchase bad mortgage-related debt that is weighing down Wall Street. The package would raise the government's debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion.
President George W. Bush called it a "bold approach" needed to prevent more severe economic disruption.
How in the world did a lameduck president with an incredibly low approval rating sell the idea that WE should hand over a trillion dollars to a (Bush appointed) Republican wall street guy to spend as he sees fit. Suddenly the dems and the republicans are stepping in line! This is BS. Read about this "plan" - you'll see that it doesn't help any consumers/homeowners, only the greedy financial institutions. The government doesn't get any assets (houses, etc.), just bad loan paper. This morning on Meet the Press, Paulson said that we could end up with a "stagnant" economy like Japan if we don't do this. I'll take "stagnant" until Obama is in office and can set his own NEW agenda. I'd like to have suggestions from others like Warren Buffett or Bloomberg or Reich. Do we really want Czar Paulson in charge of this much money when we have hungry children, people without health care and lousy schools?
First of all, the next president will have his hands tied if we do this. Bye-bye spending plans for healthcare, education, etc. You can bet these will not happen. Not just because of this bail out, but because we will have reinforced a financial situation where the greedy speculators take outrageous risks only to be rewarded by the government. Think they won't want more? "May I have just a little more crack please sir?"
I have worked as much as I could during this election, talked to more undecided voters, registered new voters, donated the little bit of money I could afford. I've even gotten involved when I could with local dems. Because I really believe that a change in government is critical now....but I didn't think it was going to be a change to total statism. (Merriam-Webster defines statism as a "concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government.")
Well I've had it! I listened to our new CEO Paulson this AM on all the political shows, and he gave me not one reason to believe that this outrageous shift of money to the gamblers in the country (and by the way not just US owned financial institutions) will actually solve anything. I see nothing that restricts what or how the money is spent, and he plans to have current "portfolio managers" from Wall Street manage big chunks of these investments. Wow, aren't these the people who brought us to where we are today? Who are they, who monitors them and BTW when has any unregulated government program ever worked? Deregulation by the Republicans got us into this mess, and we are going to trust the current players to fix it?
All I believe it will do is prevent any real change from happening by ultimately eliminating available funding for social programs.
Doesn't this remind you of the Patriot Act? Suddenly a huge bill (who wrote it and who read it?) appears out of nowhere, the Bush administration blackmails the congress into signing it AS IS and claims anyone who disagrees isn't patriotic. Well, where did this big new bailout plan come from, why was Paulson saying the economy was strong and resiliant as late as March of this year - and why does it have to be done in 7 days?
I want to hear Obama speak out against this. I need to hear Obama speak out against this! I NEED to believe that the banks and brokers don't own the Democratic party!
Unless China has called in all our loans, I just don't believe that this must be done right now! Do we really want an unprecedented financial move of this scope in the hands of Bush? This is proposed to last for a minimum of 2 years. At least take the time to read about this proposal...don't just accept it. Call your congressperson and senator and say NO! There is no time to waste. Unless you want your children to live in a country with massive debt, no regulation and corporate rule, you should call congress NOW! Tell them that they are not financial experts, cannot give adequate consideration and oversight to this plan in the next 7 days and you don't want them to do it!
Obama Steps Up: The Seven Point Plan [Update w/Official Obama Release & Poll] by gsadamb Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 11:11:19 AM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/21/135938/882/500/605634
In a rally today in Charlotte, Barack Obama laid out his thoughts on the bailout. His support for the bailout was not unconditional. This, of course, is a great thing. It'd be much harder to get enthusiastic about a candidate who was just in favor of handing over so much unadulterated authority to the Secretary of the Treasury.
Instead, he laid out a number of very specific points as to what a bailout must entail.
Obama's speech included seven specific stipulations for any bailout that happens.
1.) No blank check: Americans are going to be on the hook for almost $1,000,000,000,000. It's taxation without representation to just write blank checks without being accountable to taxpayers.
2.) Taxpayer money should not be paid to reward CEOs. Period.
3.) Taxpayers are incurring a great amount of cost and risk. The investments should be protected, and they should be able to eventually recoup the losses.
4.) THERE MUST BE A PLAN TO HELP HOMEOWNERS STAY IN THEIR HOME.
5.) Obama pointed out that this is a global crisis, and that other nations need to step in to help secure the financial market.
6.) REGULATE. REGULATE. REGULATE.
7.) This plan must work for Main Street, not just Wall Street.
I must say, I'm exceptionally relieved that Obama came out pretty strongly with these qualifications for a bailout. Some of them were pretty well-discussed before, like nothing for CEOs, additional regulation, and help for homeowners. But a couple, notably that other countries need to step up to the plate, are new, and fairly novel, and I think absolutely spot-on. The financial market is a global economy now, and so we can't be the only ones taking responsibility for it.
In all this bailout mess, I've finally seen a spot of hope and intelligence. I hope Obama keeps hammering these points home.
The Obama campaign has made an official release about his principles, and he says it better than I ever could. By the way, this is really a SEVEN point plan, so I've changed the title appropriately. Additionally, I've added a poll.
The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led to a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression. But regardless of how we got here, the circumstances we face require decisive action because the jobs, savings, and economic security of millions of Americans are now at risk. We must work quickly in a bipartisan fashion to resolve this crisis and restore our financial sector so capital is flowing again and we can avert an even broader economic catastrophe. We also should recognize that economic recovery requires that we act, not just to address the crisis on Wall Street, but also the crisis on Main Street and around kitchen tables across America. But thus far, the Administration has only offered a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan.Even if the Treasury recovers some or most of its investment over time, this initial outlay of up to $700 billion is sobering. And in return for their support, the American people must be assured that the deal reflects some basic principles. * No blank check. If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight. Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check. * Rescue requires mutual responsibility. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate to expect those institutions that benefit to help protect American homeowners and the American economy. We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility, where CEOs cash in and our regulators look the other way. We cannot abet and reward the unconscionable practices that triggered this crisis. We have to end them. * Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street. It should be structured in a way that maximizes the ability of taxpayers to recoup their investment. Going forward, we need to make sure that the institutions that benefit from financial insurance also bear the cost of that insurance. * Help homeowners stay in their homes. This crisis started with homeowners and they bear the brunt of the nearly unprecedented collapse in housing prices. We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities. * A global response. As I said on Friday, this is a global financial crisis and it requires a global solution. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets. * Main Street, not just Wall Street. The American people need to know that we feel as great a sense of urgency about the emergency on Main Street as we do the emergency on Wall Street. That is why I call on Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families – a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, save one million jobs through rebuilding our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance to help ensure that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built in America. * Build a regulatory structure for the 21st Century. While there is not time in a week to remake our regulatory structure to prevent abuses in the future, we should commit ourselves to the kind of reforms I have been advocating for several years. We need new rules of the road for the 21st Century economy, together with the means and willingness to enforce them. The bottom line is that we must change the economic policies that led us down this dangerous path in the first place. For the last eight years, we’ve had an "on your own-anything goes" philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street that lavished tax cuts on the wealthy and big corporations; that viewed even common-sense regulation and oversight as unwise and unnecessary; and that shredded consumer protections and loosened the rules of the road. Ordinary Americans are now paying the price. The events of this week have rendered a final verdict on that failed philosophy, and it is a philosophy I will end as President of the United States," said Senator Barack Obama.
The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led to a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression. But regardless of how we got here, the circumstances we face require decisive action because the jobs, savings, and economic security of millions of Americans are now at risk. We must work quickly in a bipartisan fashion to resolve this crisis and restore our financial sector so capital is flowing again and we can avert an even broader economic catastrophe. We also should recognize that economic recovery requires that we act, not just to address the crisis on Wall Street, but also the crisis on Main Street and around kitchen tables across America. But thus far, the Administration has only offered a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan.
Even if the Treasury recovers some or most of its investment over time, this initial outlay of up to $700 billion is sobering. And in return for their support, the American people must be assured that the deal reflects some basic principles. * No blank check. If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight. Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check. * Rescue requires mutual responsibility. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate to expect those institutions that benefit to help protect American homeowners and the American economy. We cannot underwrite continued irresponsibility, where CEOs cash in and our regulators look the other way. We cannot abet and reward the unconscionable practices that triggered this crisis. We have to end them. * Taxpayers should be protected. This should not be a handout to Wall Street. It should be structured in a way that maximizes the ability of taxpayers to recoup their investment. Going forward, we need to make sure that the institutions that benefit from financial insurance also bear the cost of that insurance. * Help homeowners stay in their homes. This crisis started with homeowners and they bear the brunt of the nearly unprecedented collapse in housing prices. We cannot have a plan for Wall Street banks that does not help homeowners stay in their homes and help distressed communities. * A global response. As I said on Friday, this is a global financial crisis and it requires a global solution. The United States must lead, but we must also insist that other nations, who have a huge stake in the outcome, join us in helping to secure the financial markets. * Main Street, not just Wall Street. The American people need to know that we feel as great a sense of urgency about the emergency on Main Street as we do the emergency on Wall Street. That is why I call on Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families – a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, save one million jobs through rebuilding our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance to help ensure that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built in America. * Build a regulatory structure for the 21st Century. While there is not time in a week to remake our regulatory structure to prevent abuses in the future, we should commit ourselves to the kind of reforms I have been advocating for several years. We need new rules of the road for the 21st Century economy, together with the means and willingness to enforce them. The bottom line is that we must change the economic policies that led us down this dangerous path in the first place. For the last eight years, we’ve had an "on your own-anything goes" philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street that lavished tax cuts on the wealthy and big corporations; that viewed even common-sense regulation and oversight as unwise and unnecessary; and that shredded consumer protections and loosened the rules of the road. Ordinary Americans are now paying the price. The events of this week have rendered a final verdict on that failed philosophy, and it is a philosophy I will end as President of the United States," said Senator Barack Obama.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is Enemy Action."-- Auric Goldfinger
James Bond's wealthy nemesis may have had an obsession with gold, but he judged, quite correctly, that if people keep putting your plans awry, that was likely their intent.
In 1982, the same year John McCain entered the Senate, a bill was put forward that would substantially deregulate the Savings and Loan industry. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was an initiative of the Reagan administration, and was largely authored by lobbyists for the S&L industry -- including John McCain's warm-up speaker at the convention, Fred Thompson. The official description of the bill was "An act to revitalize the housing industry by strengthening the financial stability of home mortgage lending institutions and ensuring the availability of home mortgage loans." Considering where things stand in 2008, that may sound dubious. It should.
Seven years later, the S&L industry was collapsing. What was the cause? Garn-St. Germain handed the S&Ls a greatly expanded range of capabilities, allowing them to go head to head with full service banks, but it didn't give them the bank's regulations. Left to operate in an anarchistic gray area, S&Ls chased profits, indulged in amazing extravagances, and cranked out enough cheap mortgages to fuel a real estate boom. They also experimented with lots of complex, creative -- and risky -- investments, even though they didn't have the economic models to really determine the worth of the things they were buying. The result was a mountain of bad debts and worthless "assets." Does any of that sound eerily (or nauseatingly) familiar?
It wasn't a foregone conclusion. In 1985, three years after the deregulation of the S&Ls, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board saw that the situation was already looking shaky, with the potential to become much worse. He instituted a rule to limit the amounts and types of investments S&Ls could carry on their books in an effort to head off disaster. However, many savings and loans -- among them Lincoln Savings & Loan Association of Irvine, CA, which was headed by a fellow named Charles Keating -- promptly ignored these rules.
Now enters a familiar cast of characters. First to pop up was the universally beloved Fed-chief-to-be, Alan Greenspan. Greenspan argued against the loan board's new rules, and persuaded Reagan to appoint one of Keating's pals to the board to blunt the requirements. A quintet of senators, among them John McCain, began having meetings with both the management at Lincoln and the regulators at the loan board. ] Alan Greenspan also helped out with a letter to the regulators, asking that Lincoln be exempt from the new rules. With their help of Greenspan and their pet senators, Lincoln was able to stay in business an additional two years, at the end of which they failed -- taking the life savings of 21,000, mostly elderly, investors with them.
How involved was John McCain? McCain and Keating had known each other since 1981 and had become fast friends. Of all the "Keating Five," it was McCain who moved into the life of the Lincoln S&L chief. The two men vacationed together multiple times, with the whole McCain clan (babysitter included) heading out for Keating's private Caribbean property on Keating's private jet. McCain didn't think to actually report these trips, or pay for them, until the investigators were breathing down his neck. And McCain took his payment in the form of more than just vacations. Keating and other members of Lincoln's parent company padded McCain's pockets with $112,000 in campaign contributions.
In John McCain's biography, he called his meetings with Keating and regulators "the worst mistake of my life," though from the text you'd think this was a spur of the moment decision, not something that McCain did repeatedly over a space of years. Still, you might think that a "worst mistake" would stay fresh in his memory.
It certainly didn't fade quickly for the country. Following the S&L crisis, the Resolution Trust Company was formed to swallow up the debt of Lincoln and 746 other S&Ls gone wild, and taxpayers were left with the $125 billion bill. The resulting budget deficit forced cutbacks in other programs. The artificial real estate boom collapsed and housing starts fell to their lowest levels in decades. Finally, the whole nation settled in for a period nasty enough that three years later someone could still campaign around the idea "It's the economy, stupid."
Even so, by 1999 Phil Gramm -- who had entered the Senate two years after McCain and quickly become the economic guru of the Keating Five maverick -- put forward the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This Act passed out of the Senate on a party line vote with 100% Republican support, including that of John McCain. (To be fair, the bill eventually passed again with a wide margin following revisions in the House.)
This act repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act. This may sound like a bunch of Congressperson soup, but the gist of it is that Glass-Steagall was put in place in 1933 to control the rampant speculation that had helped cause the collapse of banking at the outset of the depression, and to prevent such consolidation of the banks that the nation had all its eggs in one fiscal basket.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley reversed those rules, allowing not only more bank mergers, but for banks to become directly involved in the stock market, bonds, and insurance. Remember the bit about how S&Ls failed because they didn't have the regulations that protected banks? After Gramm-Leach-Bliley, banks didn't have that protection either.
Gramm wasn't done. The next year he was back with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which was slipped into a "must pass" spending bill on the last day of the 106th Congress. This Act greatly expanded the scope of futures trading, created new vehicles for speculation, and sheltered several investments from regulation.
As with both Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Garn-St. Germain, large parts of this bill were written by industry lobbyists. This famously included the "Enron Loophole" that exempted energy trading from regulation and was written by (big suprise) Enron Lobbyists working with Gramm. Not coincidentally, Senator Gramm, the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Enron, was also key to legislating the deregulation of California's energy commodity trading.
Thanks to this fortunate trifecta of Gramm-crafted legislation, Enron was able to create "EnronOnline" and trade electricity in California with absolutely no oversight or transparency. They quickly worked out how to game the system. Previously, there had been only one Stage 3 rolling blackout in the history of California. Within months, the system had been manipulated by traders to generate 38 such blackouts and wholesale electrical prices had gone up more than 3000%. Despite production capacity equal to four times the demand during winter, energy traders even engineered a blackout in mid-January.
During the confusion of these deliberate "shortages" and "price spikes," the California administration of Gray Davis -- blind to speculator manipulations because of the walls erected by Gramm's legislation -- was forced to sign energy contracts at enormous rates. There was little choice, because most of California's public utilities were on the brink of bankruptcy from the rising wholesale prices.
In a single year, Gramm's legislation allowed speculators to bring the state to its knees. Enron alone looted California of $11 billion. The manipulations of the energy market were also a major factor in Davis getting the hook, helped usher the governator into power, and they still have repercussions in California's budget battles today. By the end of that year, the depth of Enron's deception could no longer be hidden, and the whole company came crashing down in the largest bankruptcy in history -- at the time. This brought more billions lost in mutual funds and pension funds across the country, and played a major role in the economic downturn of 2001.
But that was only the second act. The combination of Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act was a toxic cocktail whose total damage was greater than the sum of its parts.
The first Act promoted bank buyouts and mergers that reached such an insane pitch that the average consumer could only keep up by tracking the changing names on their checks and credit cards. Mercantile buys Ameribanc and Mark Twain. Firstar buys Federated and First Colonial. US Bancorp buys Mercantile and Firstar. And, because it allowed brokerages and insurance companies to mingle with banks, the Act cemented a trend that was already (and illegally) underway in which all those terms had become rather quaint. Is Wachovia a savings bank, an investment bank, a brokerage, or an insurance provider? The answer is "yes."
In allowing financial institutions to grow to Godzilla-sized proportions, Gramm-Leach-Bliley helped ensure that we would have financial entities that were "too big to fail." Rather than choosing to enforce rules that kept these institutions apart, the deregulators chose to create monster bankeragasurances whose downfall (and existence) was enough to threaten the whole system.
But if Gramm-Leach-Bliley removed the limits on size and scope, these new institutions still needed fuel. With many financial transactions operating on razor thin margins, and increasing automation sapping the profits from trading of all sorts, they needed a new way to generate the funds required to swallow their brethren in the merged fiscal corporation pond. For that, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act was a godsend.
Among those instruments which the CFMA sheltered from regulatory scrutiny was something called the "credit default swap." A kind of insurance one bank could exchange with another, credit default swaps supposedly made it safe for banks to take on ever riskier forms of debt. The Act didn't invent these swaps, though they were relatively new. Instead, by placing them in a state where they were not only unregulated but almost perfectly opaque, credit default swaps were turned into the perfect vehicle to fuel a Wall Street revolution. No one had any idea what these things were actually worth, they were traded "over the counter" without being administered by any exchange, and even the SEC could monitor their existence only indirectly.
Who would cheer for a new kind of financial instrument that was difficult to understand, invisible to regulators, and impossible for even the whizziest of Wall Street whiz kids to value? Guess.
More recently, instruments that are more complex and less transparent--such as credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and credit-linked notes--have been developed and their use has grown very rapidly in recent years. The result? Improved credit-risk management together with more and better risk-management tools appear to have significantly reduced loan concentrations in telecommunications and, indeed, other areas and the associated stress on banks and other financial institutions.--Alan Greenspan, 2002
Get that? Greenspan loved credit default swaps. He opined again and again that such instruments would be the salvation of the industry by spreading around risks. To the mighty Greenspan, both their complexity and their lack of transparency were good things, since swaps would only be handled by the big boys who knew how to play with fire.
When questioned about his support of Gramm's legislation, John McCain called his friend (and by then, campaign co-chair) Gramm "one of the smartest people in the world on the economy" and pointed out that Greenspan also favored the acts Gramm and his coalition of lobbyists had authored. If both Gramm and Greenspan were on his side, McCain couldn't possibly be in the wrong.
Except, of course, that he could.
From the beginning, there were plenty of people in the financial community whose opinion of these unregulated credit swaps was not as rosy as that of Gramm, Greenspan, and McCain. Chief among those speaking in opposition was SEC Chairman, Arthur Levitt. Levitt argued that what the industry needed was more transparency, especially when it came to complex instruments like default swaps, and he testified to this before Gramm's Senate Banking Committee,.
"In my judgment, the risk of this regulatory approach is simply unacceptable for America's investors."--Arthur Levitt, 1999
Gramm paid no attention.
Credit default swaps did allow the banks to share risks. So much so, that banks raced each other in an effort to find more risks. They made it possible for the down payment on homes to become 3%, 1%, 0%. Skip the credit check, avoid the employment requirements, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! We've got a credit default swap, we can do anything!
The encouragement and "safety" that credit default swaps provided made the sub-prime mortgage market possible. Just as with the deregulation of S&Ls in the 1980s, the market was suddenly flooded with easy credit. The result was a real estate boom, soaring home prices, and a plague of "Flip that House!" shows on cable.
As the banks piled up crappy mortgages, they heaped on ever more of the credit default swaps -- and they still had no idea how to value the things. Worse, they began to trade the swaps themselves as if they were an investment, treating them like something worth holding instead of a big bundle of cartoon bombs whose fuses were already lit. Since very few loans were falling into default at the time, owning a default swap seemed like a way to collect fees without ever paying out. Banks wanted more, and more, and more.
A secondary market for trading swaps exploded into existence, and swaps were traded with absolutely no consideration for the nature or quality of the underlying investment. Swaps changed hands a dozen or more times, growing in "value" as they went. Worse still, no one regulated who could buy a swap, so it was (and is) perfectly possible for a company to acquire swaps that theoretically cover billions of dollars in loans, even if that company doesn't have a red cent on hand to cover those swaps should the loans default.
How big did this market become? Here's business correspondent Bob Moon and host Kai Ryssdal on American Public Media's Marketplace from back in the spring.
BOB MOON: OK, I'm about to unload some numbers on you here, so I'll speak slowly so you can follow this.The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.OK, you ready?The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.KAI RYSSDAL: That's a lot of money, Bob.
BOB MOON: OK, I'm about to unload some numbers on you here, so I'll speak slowly so you can follow this.
The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.
The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.
The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.
OK, you ready?
The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.
KAI RYSSDAL: That's a lot of money, Bob.
As in three times the whole US gross domestic product, Bob. And the truth is that Moon probably underestimated. The unregulated and poorly reported credit default swaps may have actually passed $70 trillion last year, or about $5 trillion more than the GDP of the entire world.
So, are you starting to get an idea of just how big a genie Phil Gramm and his pals unleashed?
With some regularity over the last eight years, fiscal whistle blowers have tried to raise their hands and register a protest. Um, sirs? Is it altogether a good idea to run up debts exceeding all the assets it's even possible to hold? But so long as no one actually had to pay off on the swaps, the party went on. Even usually conservative (in the fiscal sense) companies like AIG started to worry that they were being left behind and leapt headlong into the swap pool.
Shortly after Greenspan's departure in 2006, the Federal Reserve took the unusual step of issued a joint statement along with the SEC to warn about the risks associated with credit default swaps. But by that point, the damage was already severe. If swaps lost their value, most of those who had played the game would find their giant firms abruptly valued in pocket change. The only solution was to cover the problem with still more swaps and keep moving.
Then a funny thing happened. After years in which banks had handed out loans willy-nilly, guarded by the indestructible swap, people and companies started to really default on those loans. Credit slowed, home prices fell, and the whole snake started to eat itself tail first. Suddenly, credit default swaps were not sources of limitless cash. It turns out that an insurance policy -- even a secret, unregulated policy -- is occasionally expected to pay. Speculators started to look at the paper they were holding and for the first time realized it could all be worthless. Worse, it could (and did) represent a massive debt; one that no one had the funds to cover.
When Bear Stearns fell apart last March, it was only suspected that a big part of the effort in saving the giant investment bank was keeping their holdings in credit default swaps from unraveling and spreading to other institutions. Naturally, part of solving this problem involved creating a new credit default swap to cover Bear Stearn's potential debt. But the all-purpose swap was starting to lose its power. Shortly after Bear Stearns went belly up, AIG reported the largest quarterly loss in the company's history, taking a $11 billion hit on revaluing its holdings of swaps. The party was definitely coming to a close.
When AIG finally collapsed this week, there was no doubt about the primary cause of its failure. The previously well grounded company had "gotten itself involved with something called credit default swaps." Point of irony alert: Arthur Levitt now serves on the AIG board... or at least he did until the government had to take over most of AIG to salvage the company from the very idiocy Levitt had warned of in 1999.
This week, the Bush administration announced the beginnings of a plan to salvage what remains of the financial markets. At first glance, it appears that the plan will consist mainly of creating a kind of "garbage pit," a fund or group of funds -- cousins of the Resolution Trust that was created during the S&L crisis -- into which those people who have dabbled in bad debts can toss their problems. Only this time the cost to the taxpayers is at least $700 billion... and a big bite out of representative democracy.
The expansion of unregulated Savings and Loans in the 1980s brought on the collapse of that industry, a crippling of the economy, and left taxpayers holding the bag. Maybe that was only happenstance. Those pushing for the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act may not have known what they were doing.
The deregulation of the California electricity market, along with the protections provided to Enron through Phil Gramm's lobbyist-written legislation brought blackouts, fiscal and political chaos, and left taxpayers holding the bag. But the people who engineered that event -- people like Gramm and Greenspan -- had already seen what happened with the S&Ls. They should have known better. Still, perhaps that was only coincidence.
The sub-prime mortgage crisis that has not only come so close to utterly destroying the markets, but has ruined the value of many people's homes and left millions with mortgages they can't pay, was also the outcome of the deregulation created by these men. The very predictable outcome. When taxpayers are left holding the bag for $1 trillion this time around, it's hard to believe it's any sort of accident.
This is enemy action. This is a bullet deliberately fired into the economy by men willing to exercise their ideology regardless of the cost to taxpayers. Men who have every expectation that they can plunder the system again and again, while the public picks up the tab. John McCain may not have had his finger directly on the trigger, but he was there. He assisted. These were his personal friends and philosophical comrades. He may not be the high priest, but he has been a loyal acolyte in the cult of deregulation.
It may come as a surprise to the champions of deregulation, but nobody likes regulation. The restrictions that were placed on banks, S&Ls, and other institutions in the 1930s weren't put there because someone thought it would be fun. They were put in place because they addressed problems that had just been clearly and painfully revealed. They were put in place because they were necessary.
It's bad enough if John McCain didn't know that. It's far worse if he did.
EVERY diary on the Rec List should be about the Bull Shit BAILOUT until it is STOPPED
You want CHANGE, you are about to get change, change that will screw you and everyone you know up! It will not matter who is elected President, McCain or Obama if the RTC/Bailout proposed to "Save our Economy" is carried out.
Call Congress, tell them vote "NO"... you might hear them say, "We Have No Choice".....but to vote to give the control of your tax dollars to a select group of corrupt folks who only 3 months ago told us Fannie & Freddie were sound. Ask them if they would believe it when Count Dracula says, "I won’t suck your blood, trust me."
In a nutshell the RTC/BAILOUT will take the money used for our country: Infrastructure, Education, Healthcare, Social Security, Medicare, Renewable Energy, Environment, National Parks.....everything and give it to Big Banks and Big Companies....and if RTC passes Obama will not be able to do anything about it.
We must STOP it now...do not use the excuse "Wait to fix it or undue it after the election"
Folks you can work for your candidate AND call your Senators and Representative and tell them to vote "NO" ...can’t you....or are the millions of Obama supporters simpletons? Unable to multitask???
Why the harsh questions.....because if you care about all that hope and Change the Obama Campaign stands for, you would be a hypocrite not to TAKE ACTION on the BIGGEST Lying Thieving Scheme about to be voted on in COngress!
I challenge each and every one of you to call or walk to your Congressmen’s office MONDAY and tell them to vote no on the RTC/Bailout. Call Congress and tell them: NO NO NO
Do NOT accept whatever they are proposing because the end of the world they created is at hand. Find some way, anyway to address the most crucial need of the moment without agreeing to their 'solution.' Buy yourself some time; you're in the driver's seat.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Call Congress, Vote No, Or else.......RTC/Bailout will mean
1.All the banks and big companies that lost moneycan take all their CDOs, CDSs, subprime stuff and every other shitty investment that backfired, and stuff them into a big trash can euphemistally called a Resolution Trust Corporation. This has two huge advantages - it legally protects them from debt repayment problems and other subtle bankruptcy problems, and it shores up their balance sheets and immediately enables their share price to skyrocket now the debt has gone bye-bye.The great American taxpayer gets left by massive T-bill repayments together with a multi-trillion debt that will take generations to pay off, and the people in investment banks can start buying Ferraris, golf courses and private jets.
1.All the banks and big companies that lost moneycan take all their CDOs, CDSs, subprime stuff and every other shitty investment that backfired, and stuff them into a big trash can euphemistally called a Resolution Trust Corporation. This has two huge advantages - it legally protects them from debt repayment problems and other subtle bankruptcy problems, and it shores up their balance sheets and immediately enables their share price to skyrocket now the debt has gone bye-bye.
http://subprimeshowtime.wordpress.co...
The US government is only working up plans to shore up the interests of themselves and their buddies.
You’ll hear the following phrase repeatedly over the next few weeks from politicians, the Fed, the Treasury and every other scumbag out there: "We had no choice". Bailout Bernanke has hit the motherload with this one, creating the largest taxpayer liability in the history of the planet.
If you have Hope and want positive Change, PLEASE PLEASE Call Congress!!!!!!
