Heloise wrote on June 4: “Sean, the Dems don't need your unsolicited help, thanks, but no thanks.”
The body politic by definition is the people of an organized nation; in other words — us. But that body has been subsumed lately to lies being told by the party in power: the right, the Neocons, the GOP. It has become a body of lies. And "vast right wing conspiracy" has taken on new meaning.…
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26 - Jordan Richardson
Is Heloise referring to herself in the third person?
27 - Jordan Richardson
Christ, now I feel small.
28 - Cindy D
LOL sorry about that Jordan, et al :-)
29 - Baritone
The market sinking as it did represents billions of dollars in losses no matter what happens later. Even if the market does recover, that does not obviate the critical situation facing lending institutions, investment and insurance companies, among others, a number of which remain on the brink of falling off the edge of the world. And this is all owing to deregulation which McCain was instrumental in forging. To believe that he and his "commission" have the answers as to how to clean up this mess is ludicrous.
With respect to "Troopergate:" There is no argument about what a dip wad Wooten was and is. The question is did Palin use her office inappropriately to force his dismissal? That's the bottom line. Palin and McCain, in their newly adopted obstinant refusal to cooperate with the investigation may find that this issue now will never die. Closing the door on the investigation will only pique the interest of the media, the voting public, and perhaps other investigative organizations. Palin may have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
Dave, that you are far more often than not a stickler for protocol and the proper use of power, it is certainly disingenuous of you to turn a blind eye on this issue.
The McCain/Blackberry deal is just another one of those non-issues that gets legs for a while, and then will fade away. It is true that what Al Gore said regarding his relationship with the internet was closer to the truth than McCain having any real connection to the development of Blackberry technology. Keep in mind, though, that Gore did not actually utter the words "I invented the internet" as was gleefully spread around by his detractors. Of course, that didn't matter did it?
Even today, people still bring that up and consider it a part of the Gore legacy.
If McCain is forced to wear this particular albatross on his shoulder for a while, so be it. Again, the truth of it doesn't matter, nor does it matter who said it. The McCain/Blackberry connection may well become part of his lexicon. Such things, deserved or not, go with the territory.
B
30 - Andy Marsh
I keep reading this statement...all owing to deregulation which McCain was instrumental in forging.
let's pretend I'm from Missouri....Show Me! I'll even say...Please?!?! I can't find any banking deregulation taht can be shown to be responsible for this mess. I'd bet it's more like how I've heard it...it stems from trying to put people in houses that couldn't afford to be in houses...but that's just me.
The bottom line on troopergate is...who fucking cares?
31 - Baritone
Troopergate: Who cares? Frankly, I don't give a rats ass. But Sweet Sarah chose to accept the VP nomination and the scrutiny that goes with it. Anything and everything she does and has done is fair game. You want it to go away. As long as they stonewall the investigation, as long as they refuse to deal with the issue, as long as they refuse to answer questions, it will live and grow into a monster that may consume them all. If that happens, tuff shit!
B
32 - troll
Andy - for your perusal if your sensibilities won't be too offended by the source
33 - Andy Marsh
Since you liberals LOVE to quote the NY Times, I give you this...from September 11, 2003...
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
This was the democrats' response...Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
‘‘These two entities " Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac " are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.
”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,”
It was always about getting people that couldn't afford a house into a house no matter what and nothing more...
But hey...EVERYBODY knows...it's all bush's fault!
34 - Andy Marsh
Okay troll, I perused it. As a matter of fact, I even copied it and pasted it in a word doc so I could search it...never found McCains name in it once. B-tone says he was instrumental in it...did I miss something?
35 - troll
the partisan shyte is of no interest to me as all are complicit...I'm just trying to a clear picture of the history
36 - troll
'get'
37 - Andy Marsh
And just so you guys don't think I pulled that NYT thing out of some orifice...here's the link...
NYT91103
m'kay?
38 - Andy Marsh
fair enough...and I will also say that you're usually pretty nuetral and very informative...even if you do link to socialist blogs!!!hehehehe
39 - troll
Capitalism is a distortion of the underlying free market where 'communityism' isn't a dirty word
40 - Dave Nalle
Andy, good job digging up that 2003 article. I'd been looking for it after seeing a reference to it in another source. If you go back through the history of the mortgage crisis at every step you find democrats supporting and promoting bad loan policy and Republicans stymied in attempts to regulate the industry.
It's been my observation here in Texas that while Republicans are tied in to the oil and gas industry, agrobusinesses and the high tech industries, it is the democrats who have the links to lawyers, real estate developers and bankers, and that seems to hold true nationwide.
And Baritone. I'd be more sanguine about McCain's relationship with the Blackberry if I thought he could figure out how to use one.
As for Palin's very personal style of running things in Alaska, I'm not excusing it but I do understand it. You tend to work with the people you know. If she's got a pool of competent people who she happens to know from local politics or high school and brings them along with her as she rises in political prominence that's hardly unusual. Lots of other politicians have done it. Kennedy's cabinet was full of people from Harvard. Jimmy Carter brought Hamilton Jordan to Washington with him from Georgia. George W. Bush has drawn on his oil industry connections for advisers and staff. We all like to work with people we know and share our good fortune with our friends. It's a natural human instinct. Does that make it wrong?
Dave
41 - Baritone
Dave,
Well, there's a couple of things. One: You used the word "competent." Are we to imagine that Palin's high school class of what, around 300 just happened to include an adequate number of people who are serendipitously competent to handle a wide variety of high level state jobs? Amazing!
I don't equate Harvard, or even the University of Georgia with Wasilla High School.
Oh, and, so far the Dow is doing just fine, no?
B
42 - Lisa Solod Warren
HELOISE
this needs to be spread wide........
43 - Lisa Solod Warren
Andy Andy ANdy
She waited four years to even report the so called tasering. Some aunt, huh? It was an ugly divorce. She used her power to try and get the guy fired..... She shoulda kept her nose out of it. You are blinded. She's as corrupt as they come. And you and Dave can't see it. You are blinded by her sort of pretty face, I guess. She is dumb as a post, ordinary to a fault, and power hungry to the max. Just what every guy wants, huh?
44 - Dave Nalle
Baritone, she didn't pick them right out of high school. She probably had a decade worth of graduates to draw on who she had worked with in city government, plus spouses and acquaintances. That's probably a talent pool of thousands not a few hundred. And I do believe Andrew Jackson's maxim that most bureaucratic jobs are simple enough that anyone with a high school education can probably do them adequately after a couple of weeks of on the job training. I don't think that has changed much in 150 years.
Would I want all of these people to make up a federal cabinet, certainly not. But in state government I imagine that pool could provide a dozen good people or more. And when moving on to the federal level if she brought 2 or 3 I wouldn't be unduly concerned.
And Lisa, I didn't bring up the tasering. That was part of the divorce proceedings, but the proximate cause for the firing was the death threat which came well after the divorce.
Dave
45 - bliffle
Palin is immaterial. VPs never determine presidential elections.
The best she can do is attract the racist vote by allowing racists to claim they are NOT voting against the black muslim, rather they are voting FOR the chick.
Do you know anyone who switched their vote because of Palin?
46 - Cindy D
RE #44
Yeah Baritone, she didn't pick them right out of High School. She probably blah, blah blah...
Probably? Sounds like it makes sense, therefore it is. At least you said probably this time Dave.
Although, what people probably did or will do is open for anyone to imagine. I'm not sure how what I imagine people probably did figures much as far as what they actually did.
So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.
Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.
I can see how a H.S. diploma, experience as a real estate agent and the fact that you love cows could make you an excellent candidate for Director of the State Department of Agriculture.
Ms. Palin chose Talis Colberg, a borough assemblyman from the Matanuska valley, as her attorney general, provoking a bewildered question from the legal community: “Who?” Mr. Colberg, who did not return calls, moved from a one-room building in the valley to one of the most powerful offices in the state, supervising some 500 people.
“I called him and asked, ‘Do you know how to supervise people?’ ” said a family friend, Kathy Wells. “He said, ‘No, but I think I’ll get some help.’
On the job training as Attorney General, well, that seems reasonable.
Quotes from here.
47 - Baritone
McCain was head of the Senate Commerce Committee during the period that much of the deregulation legislation of banking and securities interests was pushed forward, much of it created by Phill Gramm of "American whiners" fame, who is believed by many to be McCain's likely pick for Treasury Secretary.
Dare we mention McCain's involvement in the S&L scandal back in the early 90s? Nah.
B
48 - Lisa Solod Warren
One cannot mention Phil Gramm enough. I have mentioned him countless times and will continue to do so. A MAJOR advisor to McCain.
And, yes, let's remind EVERYONE of the Keating Five, for which McCain received a mere slap on the wrist...... and for which he should have received much more.
Get with the program, guys. McCain is a natural born liar.
49 - Dave Nalle
Hell, I wrote a whole article about Gramm. I used to really hate him when he was a Texas political figure, but I've come around. His honesty and good ideas on the economy have won me over.
Dave
50 - Andy Marsh
Mention Gramm all you want...but go back and read the NYT article. He thought the regulations that bush wanted and the dems have been fighting since 2003 were a good idea too!
And on Palin picking her friends to fill her cabinet. You liberals are so fond of reminding everyone what a SMALL state Alaska is...maybe those are the only qualified people she could find??? All the cronism (sp) up there, would you really expect her to pick from the party she's been kicking out of office? Her own party?
And I still haven't seen anything that shows that McCain was INSTRUMENTAL, as B-tone said, in causing or creating this crisis.
51 - Lisa Solod Warren
Nope, check the bill he slipped through Congress..... at the very last minute. Do your research or do I have to do it for you?
52 - Lisa Solod Warren
For Andy and Dave: here
here
and here
And remember the old Keating Five?
There's more.....
53 - Heloise
Yes, Heloise does refer to herself in the third person. This freaked out the folks at Daily Kos and they thought I was plaigarizing! Well, I cleared up that mystery and then they still banned me for talking bad about the Edwards' whom they were in love with at the time. Now they got Obama's back so I am cool with that.
Heloise is the writer in my head. She is the nice one so that is why I chose to be Heloise instead of Netemara. Net is anti-semitic and that got me into lots of trouble. Heloise is the good McClinton.
Yes, my maiden name Adams and my married name is (mc)Clinton. I was born presidential---LOL.
But in (my) days of JFK I learned a lot of idioms, puns and metaphors that employ when I write. I also wrote poetry for years hence the sometimes dreamy lines. But you can't sell poetry, so I turned to prose, but it was good practice. Here's an old saying they need to bring back
"Throw the bums out!" That worked then.
Heloise aka Netemara