Of course there is not a civil war brewing in the Republican Party. Someone just made it up. But a leading conservative has recently called the non-civil non-war an impending bloodbath.
After the havoc the Republican Party and its newly formed teabagger faction have wreaked on this country from Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush and culminating with the horror of George W. Bush and his neocon policies, a bloodbath sounds just fine by me. Indeed, one is long overdue.
According to yesterday's Houston Chronicle, the teabaggers in Texas are fed up and want to throw all of the bums out. In Texas, the bums happen to be Republicans.
Even Rick Perry is a target of this group because he apparently is not conservative enough.
While it's too early to determine if the Tea Party movement will prove to be a durable political force, its candidates could prove a costly and unwanted distraction for establishment Republicans who would rather be aiming their fire at Democrats. Case in point: the GOP race for governor, where Tea Party ally Debra Medina of Wharton has announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination against incumbent Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom she dismisses derisively as "get-along-style politicians."
Speaker Tom Craddick spokesman James Bernsen is looking to take out the accomplished Diana Maldonado in House District 52.
You may remember this story line.
Tom Craddick's desire to maintain a tyrannical grasp on the House forces him to aide ill prepared candidates across the state. The candidates Craddick recruited who had political lineage or a chance were mired with the Craddick legacy. Candidates like Donna Keel lost and even Mark Shelton couldn't win a holiday special election in Fort Worth.
Perhaps that is why James Bernsen refused to list his ties to Craddick on his announcement. Instead, Bernsen cited the formerly investigated Kay Bailey Hutchison and her predecessor Phil Gramm, who was the main proponent of bank deregulation and put us in our current economic plight (along with George Bush).
Bernsen didn't have to do much working for either of them, just sell their horrid ideas to the public as their spokesperson.
Now, the man with little legislative experience is the same one who has sold bad ideas to good people for over a decade. Now he wants to defeat the TexBlog PAC endorsed Diana Maldonado.
The Austin Chronicle pointed out some more things about Bernsen to chew on.
According to his press release, he served on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's 2006 campaign staff and as Sen. Phil Gramm's deputy press secretary. What he glosses over is that, in 2008, he was also Craddick's press room. A former writer for conservative web outfit Lone Star Report, presumably that's where he decided that the state's three leading newspaper (including the Austin-American Statesman) were run by politically-correct "gnomes".
My favorite quote in the piece cited by the Austin Chronicle was the one where he compares the editorial boards with a great piece of film.
In truth, the editorial boards sit behind their curtains like the Wizard of Oz, turning dials, creating smoke, and shouting into amplifiers. But when it all comes down to it, they're helpless against the people.
While Bernsen indicates he is wrong on every issue facing Texas, House District 52 is a tough district. Last numbers I saw show HD-52 to be a 50% - 52% Republican district. It would be horrible to go from the moderate, fair minded Diana Maldonado to a man who is against holding banks and corporations accountable, opposed to equal rights and social justice, and whose only notable experience in the Texas House was working for the most tyrannical Speaker in Texas history.
According to the some of the renowned Viet Nam War draft evaders and right wing war hawks
Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, Bill Blunt, Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Phil Gramm, John Cornyn, Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage
Nancy Pelosi personally ordered the CIA to find a link between Iraq and Al-Qaida. The GOP sissy boys also insist that when no links between the two evil doers could be found, Nancy the D Girl unilaterally ordered heinous torture to bring about the results the sissy boy cowards needed to gin up their war on Iraq.
Hats off to Ed Shultz of MSNBC for calling the Sissy Boys out on their psycho babble.
W. sure was well versed in the fuzzy math for which he had ridiculed Al Gore back during the 1999 Presidential campaign cycle. Between the removal of all regulatory checks and balances, coupled with the failure to include all of the federal spending dollars in the national budget, the American people, yet again, have been misled, swindled and scammed by the Bush Administration and his Republican Party.
Thanks to the sources cited in my most recent diary on the make believe of trickle down nothing economic black magic, we are reminded that Phil Gramm, while serving in the U.S. Senate, had engineered the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. The Glass-Steagall Act had been passed in 1933 as a means to stem the wild and rampant speculation of banks that led to the Great Depression.
This is a work in progress, folks. The updates follow at the bottom.
Next time a politician extols the virtues of trickle down economics put your hands over your ears and yell NO, NO, NO. Whether they know it or not, any politician who pitches the spin that unfettered fat cat wealth will trickle down to the masses is lying. Nothing is trickling anywhere. The fat cats are not spending their gazillions. They are hiding and hoarding their money for themselves.
It seems that the biggest fat cats of them all in this country and others, those who despise paying their taxes above everything else, have found safe havens in which they have hidden their treasures from the feds. A once renowned Swiss bank helped them do it. The whistle blower who outed the scheme at a U.S. Senate hearing last July, had feared for his life. He now lives in a
witness protection program. The article reveals how the Senate hearing had all of the trappings of a Mafia movie.
Kieber, declared a fugitive by Liechtenstein, is living in an undisclosed location, reportedly as part of a witness protection program, after providing information to government officials in England, Germany, the United States and other countries on their citizens who hid billions in wealth through the bank. The German government has admitted to paying him millions for the data.
In his videotaped testimony, Kieber described stumbling across the bank's secrecy schemes while working on a document conversion project several years ago.
"Going through thousands of documents. . . I got the very clear picture" of the "tricks" employed by the bank to help clients dodge tax collectors, creditors, even "international law enforcement agencies," he said.
Although one in ten Americans are late in making their mortgage payments, or have already lost their homes, while thousands upon thousands of others are losing jobs right and left, and millions of us cannot afford health care insurance, the fat cats on Wall Street have been given a blank check to do what they want with the bailout money. Paulson convinced the Congress that the impending financial collapse would be so horrific that the bailout should be doled out with no strings, guidelines or questions.
Well, folks, it seems that the fat cats decided they just had to have their bonuses and other pricey perks. Life has been really rough for the poor devils and we the people are picking up the tab for their hardship pay.
Are we angry yet?
We very well should be because the bailout is very likely another one of W. and his Party's manufactured and deceitful schemes to loot every dime they can from our national treasury before their term ends on January 19th.
I felt it was high time for me to pay a call to our esteemed U.S. Senators to inquire about the recent financial melt down on Wall St. Since as a taxpayer I will be expected to step up and bail out a bunch of corrupted greed mongers I believe I deserve an explanation from those who got us into this unbelievable mess in the first place.
Dear Senator,
In the past two weeks I feel as if I have been hit by two devastating hurricanes. Many residents in the Houston and Galveston areas are still without power and most continue to struggle with Ike's aftermath. The nation's fourth largest city and its surrounding areas have taken a tremendous beating.
Just when we were beginning to think we could see the light at the end of Ike's tunnel we now find ourselves suddenly blindsided by another hurricane. This one did not sweep in from the Gulf. This unexpected monster came hurdling down from Wall St. and its aftermath could prove far more cataclysmic than Ike.
What is this business about a financial bailout using the taxpayer's money? It seems to me that a group of greedy and corrupted fat cats on Wall St., with the blessings of their supporters and cheerleaders in Congress, raped and pillaged the United States and now taxpayers are being asked to pay for the carnage. And we're supposed to turn over nearly $1 trillion and say "we trust you to clean up after yourselves."
Please.
See what Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine has to say about the Wall Street debacle.
The New York Times released the text of the proposed $700 billion bailout plan. It's already easy to see why wall street responded favorably and why main street needs to be concerned.
The first point of concern is two parts. One, the reason we are in this mess and why we can't trust anything John McCain says now.
That is why Mother Jones has aptly called the mastermind of the McCain economic policy, Foreclosure Phil. (If you are concerened about the market or want to know how we got here, this is a must read.)
Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.
The money is Paulson's to use for buying commercial and residential mortgages and mortgaged backed securities as he chooses. No one has any oversight over him, and he can pay any price he wants to, including face amount of the debt.
Courts cannot review his decisions, not can any regulators. He has to report to Congress once every six months.
He gets 700 Billion dollars to use as he sees fit, looking after the taxpayer is a "consideration" not a requirement.
Bet on that 700 Billion dollars being gone before January 20, 2009. Bet on Treasury asking for more.
That is $2,324 dollars per man, woman and child in America
There is no bailout for mortgage holders. Banks get bailed out, but not ordinary people.
Banks and brokerages made record profits these last eight years. Ordinary Americans barely broke even.
In 2007 Wall Street paid itself bonuses equal to the raises of 80 million Americans.
Banks bailed out by this plan need make no changes in how they do business.
Banks bailed out need not replace the management which drove them into insolvency.
Shareholders and bondholders of such banks do not lose a cent.
The securities which caused this crisis are still allowed.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Sunday that foreign banks will be able to unload bad financial assets under a $700 billion U.S. proposal aimed at restoring order during a devastating financial crisis.
"Yes, and they should. Because ... if a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution," Paulson said on ABC television's "This Week with George Stephanopolous."
While Wall Street gets bailed out in this massive increase of federal bureaucracy, what do average American's get to help them in these troubled times? You guessed it, nothing.
USA Today is reporting that Paulsen, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, has proclaimed "Don't add household to financial bailout".
He expressed little interest in efforts by Democrats to include further relief for homeowners facing mortgage foreclosures, a $50 billion stimulus effort and a cap on compensation of executives at the troubled firms that will be bailed out.
Such efforts, he said, would simply slow down attempts to get a rescue package in place soon.
"The biggest help we can give the American people is to stabilize our financial system right now and prevent the system from clogging up," Paulson said.
The size of this bailout is unprecedented. In one day we will spend almost as much money on bailing out irresponsible corporate giants as we did during the entire Iraq war. Estimates range from $700 billion to $1.3 trillion for the entire program. While we are spending this money, it will not ask for more oversight on what these companies are doing, it won't re-instituting any of the regulations that were in place after the Great Depression, it will not eliminate the golden parachute we had out to failed CEO's like John McCain economic advisory Carly Fiorina, and it refuses to help average people who are seeing their homes foreclosed.
This proposed bailout is bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. The only people this is good for, are the same people that were helped out by Phil Gramm's deregulation of the banking system. If you can honestly say you are doing better now than you were in 2000, then you should support this bailout. If not, you should ensure that there are at least some protections for average American's in this huge taxpayer funded corporate welfare package.
Many of the same economists and opinion-makers who'd provided a bipartisan sheen of consensus to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's previous moves have quickly begun casting doubts on the wisdom of a policy that would allow Treasury to purchase without oversight hundreds of billions of dollars of difficult-to-price assets from financial institutions.
Under the proposal, Paulson would not have to report to Congress until December, and the only safeguard for taxpayers was a provision that the "Secretary shall take into consideration means for - (1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and (2) protecting the taxpayer."
In stunning news, Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr has asked current Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul to be his running mate.
Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party nominee for president, has invited GOP Congressman Ron Paul to be his running mate in the upcoming election. In a letter sent to Paul, Barr called Paul one of the "few American patriots" who exist in today's society, and asked him to "seriously consider this final offer as an opportunity to show true, lasting leadership beyond party politics."
The incredible part about this isn't that a Barr is asking Paul to be his running mate, it's the fact that we still aren't hearing anything about the lack of unity in the Republican Party.
Ron Paul was a candidate to be the Republican nominee for President. He is already on the Montana ballot this November. Now, he has been asked by a third party to leave his party completely and join the Libertarian Party to run against John McCain.
It's not a total stretch, Paul ran for President as a Libertarian in 1988.
Barr's offer seems real.
Barr's running mate, Wayne Allyn Root, expressed support: "As the Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee, I believe in one thing above all else-principle. There can be no compromise on the ideals of limited government, lower taxes, lower spending, and more freedom for the American people. Those are the principles to which I've dedicated my life. The GOP and Democratic candidates only give lip service-at best-to these ideals and principles. It is only an act at election time every four years."
This signals that the Republican Party is still fractured. It also helps our statewides as the small government right are drawn to the Libertarian party. Not to mention the effects it has on the straight ticket vote.
This all assumes two things-- Ron Paul accepts and Suzanna Hupp doesn't find a way to get Barr and Paul to drop out of the race.
Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas lawmaker who attracted a devoted following in the GOP primaries, said Wednesday he rejected an appeal to endorse John McCain's presidential bid.
Paul said the request came from Phil Gramm, the former McCain adviser and ex-senator whom the campaign jettisoned after he said the country was a "nation of whiners" about the economy. Gramm defeated Paul in the Republican primary for the Senate in 1984.
Speaking to reporters at a news conference, Paul said Gramm called him this week and told him, "You need to endorse McCain." The Texas congressman said he refused.
"The idea was that he would do less harm than the other candidate," Paul said.
The DNCC has release a new video responding to the McCain/Gramm tax plan.
This is a year were there are stark differences between the two candidates. One thinks the recession is mental. The other things you are mental if you don't realize how bad our economy has gotten under George Bush and John McCain.
One candidate is working to make the tax structure fair. McCain wants to make a tax system that helps him and his donors more than average Americans.
McCain wants to drill our way to oil independence. Obama wants to create a new green economy with multiple solutions to one global problem.
Unless you have $5,000,000 or think the recession is all in our heads, it's time for something different. The McCain/Gramm tax plan, isn't right for the millions of people who need help from our government.
