[	Tags	|	aprilfishes	]
[	mood	|	impressed	]

Well Rupa must make those people feel like total failures.

[	Tags	|	bailout	]
[	mood	|	distressed	]

Note that while this totally suXors and bit of grieving for democracy and free markets is warranted, we can still keep up pressure to make sure that Paulson doesn't get away with handing too much free money to his friends (and former co-workers) without the public at least hearing about it. Stay on top of the individual transactions, read analysis at places like Calculated Risk and RGE Monitor, and continue to ping your congressperson and senators to ensure they don't slack on their oversight obligation.

[	Tags	|	epicfail	]
[	mood	|	grateful	]

The roll call is available online now if you want to figure out who voted which way. My guy was a yes, sigh. Note that this bill has a completely misleading title, they co-opted some old legislation to get around parliamentary procedure and bring this to the floor quickly.

[	Tags	|	fascism bailout	]
[	mood	|	angry	]

We knew they were evil, but who knew they were stupid evil? Last night, while the average taxpayer was combing through over a hundred pages of "draft" legislation for the bailout, with no analysis, context, or explanation from the authors, trying to determine what it would realy mean, Paulson had a private conference call for Wall Street investment bankers explaining exactly how the program would work. And big surprise, the answer is it will work exactly the way Wall Street wants, despite "concessions" made to congress. Good notes on this at naked capitalism:

the Treasury Department held a conference call this evening for analysts on the bailout bill. A memo was evidently sent to SIFMA members; others may have been contacted by other means. But the report I got from one person who was on the call was the the questions came from financial services industry members. In other words, this was most assuredly not intended to be a call open to the public at large. If anyone from the media or other member of the great unwashed was listening in, it was by accident

The key "protections" that were outlined by Pelosi when the agreement was announced Saturday night were:

• Cuts the payment of $700 billion in half and conditions future payments on Congressional reviewGives taxpayers an ownership stake and profit-making opportunities with participating companies
• Guarantees taxpayers are repaid in full -- if other protections have not actually produced a profit
• No multi-million dollar golden parachutes
• Limits CEO compensation that encourages unnecessary risk-taking
• A strong oversight board appointed by bipartisan leaders of Congress

Paulson carefully put the lie to every single one of these. Payment cut in half? To stop the second half congress would half to pass a new law, which is subject to a veto, so a two thirds majority is needed. Taxpayer ownership? Only for companies getting over $100M, and then only stock at levels designed to not discourage participation. Paid in full? Years down the road a new tax on all financial companies, not just the ones participating in the bailout, meaning taxpayers would be paying themselves back. Exec comp? Only affects contractsthat are written after the program starts. No provision for clawbacks (recovering bonuses paid earlier) or for voiding parachutes written as recently as three days ago.

Why the secrecy about the details of the plan? Why not write all of this into the law that congress is to vote on? Because Paulson knows that the true details couldn't pass. Make no mistake about this. There is no emergency. This is not a rescue plan. This is not a bailout plan. This is fascism. This is a simple taking of money from taxpayers and giving it to rich Wall Street firms that don't even need it (again cribbed from Yves):

WE want healthy institutions to participate

Call your congressperson, call your Senators. Go in the street and yell. You still can make a difference--the House may vote today, but the Senate probably won't vote til Wednesday.

UPDATE: rawer transcript and great comments at Deal Breaker

[	Tags	|	privatizetheprofitssocializethelosses at	]
[	Current Location	|	a plutocracy formerly known as the USA	]
[	mood	|	angry	]

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 [that's 700 BILLION dollars] outstanding at any one time

...

Sec. 8. Review.

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.

...

Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.

Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000 [That's 11.3 TRILLION dollars].

Dear Senator Murray,

I hope that in this moment of "crisis", which was born of the reckless greed of Wall Street firms, you do not cave into pressure or panic and vote to support this insane proposal to give the treasury a blank check for $700B with no oversight. This is simply theft, taking from the taxpayers at large and funneling the money to Paulson's cronies on Wall Street, people who have made billions in the past few years while average Americans saw their real wages dwindle. We absolutely cannot trust the Bush administration to "just do the right thing", they have shown over and over again that given (or just by taking) super-constitutional powers they will abuse them for their own purposes and saddle the taxpayer with the result. This cannot be allowed to pass, it will be a disaster of unprecedented proportion, and bankrupt this country for generations. If we must do something then let us use the powers and systems we already have: bankruptcy and existing regulations. Let us at least ensure that any law passed now explicitly protects tax payers first, depositors second, and does not give free money to share holders and debt owners, and preserves Congressional and Judicial oversight over the process.

[	Tags	|	election	]
[	mood	|	bitchy	]

Listen, liberals, it's time to stop whining about campaign ads and the qualifications or lack thereof of VP nominees. The real election is happening on the ground--the enemy is re-energized, it knows how to fight and it has no conscience. Consider this bit from Michigan, a plan to disenfranchise the foreclosed:

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week.

In the past two elections a very clear pattern of polarization has emerged on the electoral map. The West Coast and New England vote Democratic, the South and the plains/Rockies vote Republican. Florida was a battleground in 2000 but really isn't anymore. The real battleground states this time around are Michigan, Colorado, Virginia, and Ohio.

The guys over at fivethirtyeight.com have some excellent statistical models of the election based on current polls and the electoral college (538 is the number of electoral college votes, 270 is what it takes to win). Currently McCain is a 52 to 48 favorite to win, but there is are two very important learnings here:

• there's no way for McCain to win without taking Ohio
• There's also no way for Obama to win without taking at least one of Michigan and Ohio

In simple terms this means that if Obama wins Ohio, he wins the election. If Obama loses Ohio he absolutely must win Michigan. It's that simple. This is where your energy should be focused, where your dollars should be sent. Got relatives in Ohio or Michigan? Call them up, ask them to spread the word on how evil McCain and Palin are (the rape kit story is a good one, but they can make up random lies if they want). Got ideas to fuck with the Republican machine? How about volunteering as a Republican and then sabotaging a get out the vote campaign, or stealing fliers, or deliberately misprinting rumors on their own letterhead. Get nasty, fight dirty, and be in it to win. Give money til it hurts. Do not satisfy yourself with righteous indignation and a thoughtful comment on a WaPo story.

[	Tags	|	whatcouldpossiblygowrong	]
[	mood	|	nervous	]

With the Large Hadron Collider firing up for the first time Wednesday, some critics have speculated that the world's biggest atom smasher could spawn a black hole that would devour Earth.
Most physicists respond that the collider is safe ... But what if they're wrong?
[...]
The machine could also unmask a theoretical but as yet unseen particle, called Higgs boson—or the "God particle"—that is believed to give other particles their mass.
There's also a very, very remote chance that the process will spawn black holes—any one of which could assume an odd orbit within Earth, devouring microscopic chunks of matter until the entire planet is gone, physicists say.
[...]
"This tiny little black hole grows little by little and starts eating up the Earth," he said.
"It has to loop back, and it's a little bit like a comet that has an orbit that keeps going through the Earth."
After absorbing the entire Earth—how long it would take is unclear—the black hole would be nearly the size a golf ball but would have the same mass as Earth did before it was gobbled up.
The baby black hole would simply take Earth's place in the solar system, Feng said.