Titties, Toes And Tater-Tot Tuesday

Monday With McCain

"Sure. Technically, I don't know." --asked if the U.S. is in a recession, "60 Minutes" interview, Sept. 21, 2008

"You Pucked With The Wrong Ice President!"

Let's hope this remains fiction!!!

This Modern World

The USA-USSR Connection

Enough McCain...Let's Go Straight To The Big Guy...God

For my athiest friends...

Will The Real John McCain Please Stand Up?

Today, John McCain came out in favor of the $700 billion bailout for US and foreign financial companies:

"We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees."

It was just a few, short weeks ago, however, that Senator McCain gleefully accepted the GOP nomination for President of the United States and voiced his support for the 2008 Republican platform. It seems that he forgot this part:

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all. We encourage potential buyers to work in concert with the lending community to educate themselves about the responsibilities of purchasing a home, condo, or land."

So what's it gonna be, Johnny?...Yes...Yes..Yes...Let me sleep on it and i'll give you my answer in the morning...

A Hockey Mom In NYC

I was going to write a snarky post about Palin's field trip to the UN, but this image from the NY Daily News will suffice...

Titties, Toes And Tater-Tot Tuesday

McCain's Campaign Manager Was Paid $2 Million To Defend FannieMae & FreddieMac Against Stricter Regulations

From internationalheraldtribune.com:

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.

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.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae's former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, 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.

"The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again," said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Davis's firm $35,000 a month. Davis "didn't really do anything," McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Davis's role with the group has bubbled up as an issue in the campaign, but the extent of his compensation and the details of his role have not been reported previously.

McCain was never a leading critic or defender of the mortgage giants, although several former executives of the companies said Davis did draw McCain to a 2004 awards banquet that the companies' Homeownership Alliance held in a Senate office building. The organization printed a photograph of McCain at the event in its 2004 annual report, bolstering its clout and credibility. The event honored several other elected officials, including at least two Democrats, Governor Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama.

In an interview Sunday night with CNBC and The New York Times, McCain noted that Davis was no longer working on behalf of the mortgage giants. He said Davis "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

Asked about the reports of Davis's role, a spokesman for McCain said that during the time when Davis ran the Homeownership Alliance, the senator had backed legislation to increase oversight of the mortgage companies' accounting and executive compensation. The legislation, however, did not seek to change their anomalous structure as private companies with federal support.

The spokesman, Tucker Bounds, also noted that the Homeownership Alliance included nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Urban League. "It's not controversial to promote homeownership and minority homeownership," Bounds said. More than a half-dozen current and former executives, however, said the Homeownership Alliance was set up mainly to defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by promoting their role in the housing market, and the two companies paid almost the entire cost of the group's operations.

"They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie," said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. "We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis." Maloni added, "Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good." (Several executives said Davis's compensation was not unusual for the companies' well-connected consultants.)

The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.

At the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recruited Davis to run the Homeownership Alliance in 2000, they were under new pressure from private industry rivals and deregulation-minded Republicans who argued that the two companies' federal sponsorship gave them an unfair advantage and put taxpayers at risk. Critics of the companies had formed their own Washington-based advocacy group, FM Watch. They were pushing for regulations that would deter the companies from expanding into new areas, including riskier and more profitable mortgages.

Davis had recently returned to his lobbying firm from running McCain's unexpectedly strong 2000 Republican primary campaign, which elevated McCain's profile as a legislator and Davis's as a lobbyist.

"You can say what you want about free-market distortions, but people like the system because it gets them into houses cheap," Davis said to Institutional Investor magazine in 2000, adding that he would run the advocacy group out of his Alexandria, Virginia, lobbying firm.

The organization also hired Public Strategies, a communications firm that included former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. Davis wrote letters and gave speeches for the group. In April 2001, he sent out a press release headlined, "It's Tax Day — Do You Know Where Your Deductions Are? For Most Americans, They're in Your Home."

But by the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were recovering from accounting problems and re-examining costs, former executives said. The companies decided the Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it disappeared.

Monday With McCain

Another John McCain joke:

Question: Why does Mexican beer have two "X's" on the label?

Answer: Because wetbacks always need a co-signer.

Scoreboard: John McCain-13.....Barack Obama-1

Uber-Patriot John McCain has a big lead in the vehicles-owned category. McCain and stepford-wife Cindy own 13 vehicles, 4 of which are foreign made. Barack Obama owns one car, a 2008 Ford Escape hybrid. Courtesy newsweek.com

This Modern World

The Man Who Would Be King...Of The United States

John McCain demonstrated again on Tuesday that he was telling the truth about not knowing much about the economy. For a man concerned about protecting the average American from Wall Street greed, he seemed not to know who plays what role.

During a speech Tuesday in Tampa, FL, McCain repeatedly referred to the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, the corporation that “return[s] customers’ cash, stock and other securities” if a brokerage goes bankrupt, and is known as the SIPC — as S-P-I-C. Watch it here.

It’s possible that McCain misspoke (twice!) in rattling off what he called “the alphabet soup” of regulators, but the error appeared both times in the prepared text released by the campaign. Which raises the question: does John McCain have any idea about what he’s talking about or is he just reading what is put in front of him?

Moving past the verbal gaffe, the more serious problem is that John McCain and his advisors don’t seem to know what SIPC is. In today’s speech, he said:

Too many firms on Wall Street have been able to count on casual oversight by regulatory agencies in Washington. And there are so many of those regulators that the responsibility for oversight is scattered, unfocused and ineffective. Among others, we’ve got the SEC, the CFTC, the FDIC, the SPIC and the OCC. But for all their big and impressive sounding names, the fact is they haven’t been doing their job right, or else we wouldn’t have these massive problems on Wall Street. At their worse, they’ve been caught up in Washington turf wars instead of working together to protect investors and the public interests. And we don’t need a dozen federal agencies doing the job badly — we need the best federal agencies to do the job right.

The problem is, SIPC is not a regulator. Don’t take my word for it, though. Check out the SIPC’s own web site, which states “Though created by the Securities Investor Protection Act (15 U.S.C. §78aaa et seq., as amended), SIPC is neither a government agency nor a regulatory authority. It is a nonprofit, membership corporation, funded by its member securities broker-dealers.”

What a dumb shit...

John McCain Invented The Blackberry...

...or so one of his aides claims. Courtesy of boston.com:

Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry.

At least that's the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain's work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, "You're looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create."

McCain has acknowledged that he doesn't know how to use a computer and can't send e-mail, one of the BlackBerry's prime functions.

Holtz-Eakin's argument is similar to one advanced by Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000. Gore once boasted about "taking the initiative to create the Internet" through technological and educational policies. He later was mocked for claiming to have invented the Internet, although he never made such a claim.

Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said McCain's service on and leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee put him at the intersection of a number of economic interests, including the telecommunications industry.

The Arizona senator's handling of regulation and deregulation of that industry in particular left him with the skills to help revive the economy amid a mortgage crisis, an energy crisis and a Wall Street meltdown, the adviser said.

"He can and has the judgment to put people in place with technical expertise, with the history of experience in the areas necessary, that we're going to get reforms," Holtz-Eakin said.

Titties, Toes And Tater-Tot Tuesday

Monday With McCain

"I'm John McCain, and I approved this message."---at the conclusion of an ad falsely accusing Barack Obama of promoting sex education for kindergarten children

Tina Fey as Sara Palin on Saturday Night Live!!!

I've Been To Russia A Few Times...Can I Be Secretary Of State?

Trust me, I'll be eminently more qualified that Sarah Palin on anything having to do with foreign affairs.

This is one of the worst talking points I've ever seen. It's from a recent interview with McCain:

Q: Well, you say you're sure that she has the experience, but again, I'm just asking for an example. What experience does she have in the field of national security?
McCain: Energy. She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America. She's a governor of a state where 20% of America's energy supply comes from there. And we all know that energy is a critical and vital national security issue. We've got to stop sending $700 billion of American money to countries that don't like us very much. She's very well versed on that issue. And, uh, she also happens to represent, be governor of a state that's right next to Russia. She understands Russia.

And nobody questions John McCain's judgement? Good God! Now, let's ignore McCain's ridiculous assertion that Palin knows more about energy than anyone else in the good ol' US of A (I mean, really, WTF?!) and take another look at the last sentence of his statement. Apparently, because Palin is Governor of Alaska, and Alaska is separated from Russia by the Bering Strait, this somehow translates into Palin understanding Russia, and thus having national security experience. Never mind the fact that Palin has never actually been to Russia, and didn't even get her first passport until 2007! I've been unable to ascertain whether Palin took any elective courses in Russian language, history, literature, or politics at any of the four colleges she attended while pursuing a degree in communications. But this does not matter, because McCain has assured us that Palin "understands" Russia, something that very few people, whether scholars or government officials, can claim to do (in fact, it brings to mind a certain quote by Winston Churchill).

But this wasn't the first time that the McCain campaign used this talking point. Cindy McCain had this to say when George Stephanopoulos claimed that Palin had no security experience:

C. MCCAIN: You know, she — the experience that she comes from is with what she’s done in the government.

And, also, remember, Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia. So it’s not as if she doesn’t understand what’s at stake here.

I think my brain just exploded.

Typical Republican Wisdom

Did you know that the economy is "not so bad" under the Bush Administration and the Republicans? Well...Not to defend George Bush but...He did Nationalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...That's a good thing, right?

Courtesy of The American Spectator and Robert Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.:

The campaigning politicians apparently cannot talk accurately about the economy. As I am not campaigning for anything, let me try to describe the economy as it is. The Democrats cannot talk accurately because if they did the average American would realize that the economy under President George W. Bush has not been so bad. Furthermore, the Democrats have not a clue as to how to improve it. All they would do with their promised tax increases and other extensions of the federal bludgeon onto the market would be to slow down an economy that is actually growing.



Did I say growing? Yes I did, but the Republicans cannot talk about the growing economy because if they did it would sound as though they had no compassion for those who are not doing particularly well in this economy. This is a rhetorical trick that the Democrats have imposed on the Republicans. So effective has it been in cowing the Republicans that quite possibly never again will a sitting president be able to boast of a record of economic achievement. To do so would be to ignore the less well off, even though there will always be less well off. For that matter, in every economy no matter how robust, there will be citizens in difficulty.

Nonetheless, someone ought to note the economic health of the present economy. Let me give it a try.

Yes, with gasoline pushing $4 a gallon and fuel oil at historic highs as we face the winter, there is reason to be apprehensive. Moreover, there are widespread declines in home prices. Financial institutions are failing. The equity market is down. And inflation is inching up. Yet that does not warrant describing this economy as being in "Depression," as Joe Stiglitz, the Clintonista, has said it is. Nor is it even in recession, as the Prophet Obama and his amiable sidekick, Senator Joe Biden, believe it to be.

In point of fact, we are living through the third longest peacetime expansion since 1857, which is about as far back as such calculations have been made. The growth continues. Last quarter's growth has now been revised upwards from just under 2% to a healthy 3.3%. Milton Friedman calculated that that real GDP grew at 3.25% since World War II, about the same as it has grown from the middle of the 19th century.

At the present the economy's growth is relatively healthy and its prospects are good. Sure catastrophe could strike, but it will have to be one whale of a catastrophe, say a big taxer in the White House surrounded by people with Saul Alinsky's vision of economics, which was socialism -- assuming that the old radical had any economic vision at all. Alinsky was the community organizer who inspired the Prophet. Incidentally, there is no evidence that Obama has had any managerial experience. Nor has he managed budgets of any size. Senator John McCain managed the largest air squadron in the Navy with a budget of over $1 billion. Governor Sarah Palin managed a small town and the state of Alaska.

So the economy is doing pretty well, though more can be expected and it is understandable that the citizenry does expect more. Since the beginning of the Reagan economic comeback, we have all lived through a period of unparalleled economic stability and vigor. If the Bush Administration was the third longest period of growth since 1857, the two longer periods were experienced in our lifetimes, in the Clinton Administration (120 months) and the Reagan Administration (92 months). It is natural that contemporary Americans expect more from their economy.

To expect it from the Prophet Obama, however, is a leap in faith and an investment in futility.

As Jeff Spicoli would say...You Dick!!!

The New Faces Of Politics

Where is Joe Biden?

This Modern World

Great...

Courtesy cnn:

McCain must embrace Palin's beliefs, evangelical leader says

Her faith is one of the reasons many evangelical Christians are excited about Sarah Palin's addition to the Republican presidential ticket, but the Alaska governor's evangelical beliefs have also drawn scrutiny.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says evangelicals are closely watching the McCain campaign.

Evangelicals are closely watching whether the McCain campaign embraces Palin's religious views or shies away from them, Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, told CNN.

Perkins sat down with CNN's John Roberts on Tuesday to discuss how the vice presidential pick's faith could influence the presidential election.

Roberts: For a couple of decades, she was a member of the Pentecostal Assembly of God church. Six years ago, she changed to the Wasilla Bible Church. I read an article in which one of her former pastors suggested [the McCain campaign] may be playing down her faith because there may be some misunderstanding about her Pentecostalism. What do you think about all of this? Watch how faith could shape the 2008 vote »

Perkins: Obviously people, the polling data would suggest people want a leader or leaders that believe in God [and] pray, and I think there's some sense that there's a greater accountability there. But I think the campaign, John, is at a critical point. John McCain made an incredible selection. He has turned around the campaign that I think was moving south, and there's enthusiasm, excitement and hope among social conservative voters.

But ... the next few days, next couple of weeks will be very critical because as you pointed out, her faith has become an issue. It's being attacked, being used as a weapon against her. People are watching. It will be very important how the McCain campaign handles this. If they become defensive and run from it and try to hide the fact that there is this element of faith, then I think it's going to turn off social conservatives, evangelicals, orthodox Christians. Is the Palin pick a risk? »

If they say, "Hey, why should someone have to check their faith at the door and move towards the base," I think it's going to energize, you know, the socially conservative voters more. It's very important how they deal with this in the next few days.

Roberts: You say people are attacking her because of her faith. Are they attacking her or asking legitimate questions, such as when she said at the Assembly of God church back in June. ...

[Palin] talked about U.S. troops in Iraq, and she put it this way: "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that's from God." Even some Pentecostals say that could mean that the U.S. is in a holy war with the Muslim world.

Perkins: I think it's important that you see where these convictions lead her on policy issues, and I think that is part of the scrutiny that she will undergo from socially conservative voters.

Roberts: Do you have any idea at this point about how her faith will inform how she governs?

Perkins: No. There's not a lot of evidence in Alaska other than, you know, she's conservative. I mean there's not -- you can't point to a lot of policies that people say [she adopted] because she's a conservative evangelical.

You don't see a lot of that. I think what people are looking for from the McCain campaign is: He's made a great selection. He has their attention. He's built hope and enthusiasm. Are they going to move away from this faith element? Are they going to move away from, you know, the base trying to keep her from being too aligned with him or going to run to their strength?

That will be a critical decision they make in the next several days.

Titties, Toes And Tater-Tot Tuesday