Because They Can't Walk and Chew Gum

The weirdest argument coming from Repuglicans lately is that President Obama is overreaching, trying to do to much, and not keeping his eye on the ball. Just because the prior President could not deal with more than one thing at a time, does not mean Obama can't. Still this is what the Repuglicans are going with.

And of course a lot of the mainstream media is ready to run with this talking point. Here is ABC's Jake Tapper on Monday night during Nightline: "It's the media's new question. Is the president attempting to do too much?" The NBC's Brian Williams last night on the Nightly News: "Today marked President Obama's 50th day in office. Halfway through his first 100 days, the president's first seven weeks have been a whirlwind, with often dramatic movement in all directions, on all fronts: the economy, health care, two wars, and today education reform, which raises the question talked about on cable all day long: Is it all too much for any one administration?"

What?

Then you read Carl Cameron on Fox News and he confirms this is a Republican talking point: "Republicans across Capitol Hill today complained that President Obama and Democrats are taxing too much, spending too much, and borrowing too much. They say this is their mantra for the weeks and months ahead."

Along with ABC's George Stephanopoulous who on Monday night said: "The phrase is 'overloading the circuits'....It's coming from a lot of different corners, especially Republicans like John McCain, and the White House is pushing back very hard against this criticism."

Luckily President Obama and his staff seemed ready for this critism and had some good responses to such charges. Here's what he had to say on the subject yesterday, as a preface to his speech on education:

"I know there's some who believe we can only handle one challenge at a time. And they forget that Lincoln helped lay down the transcontinental railroad and passed the Homestead Act and created the National Academy of Sciences in the midst of civil war. Likewise, President Roosevelt didn't have the luxury of choosing between ending a depression and fighting a war; he had to do both. President Kennedy didn't have the luxury of choosing between civil rights and sending us to the moon. And we don't have the luxury of choosing between getting our economy moving now and rebuilding it over the long term.

"America will not remain true to its highest ideals -- and America's place as a global economic leader will be put at risk -- unless we not only bring down the crushing cost of health care and transform the way we use energy, but also if we do -- if we don't do a far better job than we've been doing of educating our sons and daughters; unless we give them the knowledge and skills they need in this new and changing world."

This is just a really lame attack by the Repuglicans, and I hope the media stops giving it.

Is Cornyn Preparing for a Run at the White House?

Senator John Cornyn, a staunch conservative Republican from Texas was the only Senator not to vote yesterday on the economic recovery package. He instead was at a New York gathering of prominent media conservatives and Wall Street Republican donors.

Cornyn has been one of the most vocal opponents of the stimulus, and has been positioning himself as the voice of the Republicans. So I have to wonder why was Cornyn at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Midtown Manhattan, when such a big vote was going on. Is he lining up support for a run? Was he sure not to be part of a vote that if it works he does not want to be on the record against, while already having gained some cred for standing up to the Democrats?

I think we are going to see a John Cornyn candidacy.

Americans Trust Obama, Republicans Not So Much

So far the American public is giving President Barack Obama their approval for handling the government's efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill, while they don't believe the Republicans in Congress have been doing a very good job. In a new Gallup Poll the Repugs receive an approval rating 31%, in fact fifty-eight percent of the public openly disapprove of the GOP’s actions.

This is really surprising.

You might have read how Think Progress released a report showing that Republican members of Congress outnumbered their Democratic counterparts by a ratio of 2 to 1 on the cable news shows. Apparently these Republicans and their talking points haven't been very persuasive. This is surprising because not only have conservative Republicans been dominating the discourse, but their talking points have been largely internalized by journalists covering the debate.

Let's hope this is not a outlier, and that the American public is paying attention.

Now a new CNN poll found similar results to the Gallup poll.

Seventy-six percent of those quesioned [sic] in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday give President Obama a thumbs-up when it comes to the way he's performing his duties, with 23 percent disapproving of the way Obama's handling his job as president.

While Repuglicans have been exceedingly pleased with their actions over the last few weeks, the American public is not.

Three out of four say that President Obama is doing enough to cooperate with Republicans in Congress, but only 39 percent feel that congressional Republicans are cooperating enough with the President.

Six out of ten approve of the way Democratic leaders in Congress are handling their jobs. But only 44 percent of those questioned approve of the way Republican leaders in Congress are performing.

Republicans may like to act as if they are not concerned with public attitudes, but they are. Republican leadership is the biggest set of cowards you have ever seen, and they will start feeling the heat. Watch them begin to fold this week.

Rachel Maddow to the GOP: Get out of the way.

I am sure over the past two weeks you have seen assessments of both the stimulus and the debate over the stimulus, but if you did not see Rachel Maddow's take on Friday night then you missed the best. She plainly and clearly points out that Republicans are not trying to come up with an effective stimulus plan. Personally I believe they are trying to make the situation worse.

Watch it here:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

She rightly points out that it is completely idiotic to cut food-stamp funding from an economic stimulus package during a recession. Food-stamps are one of the best ways to get money into the economy quickly, and are spent fast. She states correctly that a whopping proportion of the Republican rhetoric about stimulus is just wrong, and it is time for Republicans to get out of the way of the people who are actually trying to save the country.

How will Obama respond?

Now that the Republicans have shown President Obama the back of their hand, and have proven to be a bunch of whiney children, what will he do? Will Obama continue to work for bipartisanship as an end in itself? Will he agree to more GOP modifications just to buy a few votes?

I really do not know.

I understand the want for bipartisanship, but at what cost? At what point should Obama push for a real progressive stimulus package, knowing that success will bring Republican support after the fact?

I just don't know.

The public overwhelmingly supports President Obama, so at what point does he have to stop waiting for Republicans to act in good faith, and instead move forward?

At the end of the day some sort of stimulus package will inevitably make it into law. But whether it passes with meaningful support from Republicans, or is a meaningful package, is the first test of Obama's administration.

What’s up with the Republicans?

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert asks the question, why is anyone even listening to the Repuglicans?

I would like to know too.

The Same Old Song
By Bob Herbert

What’s up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state?

The G.O.P.’s latest campaign is aimed at undermining President Obama’s effort to cope with the national economic emergency by attacking the spending in his stimulus package and repeating ad nauseam the Republican mantra for ever more tax cuts.
“Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work,” said Representative John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who is House minority leader. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Boehner said of the plan: “Put me down in the ‘no’ column.”

If anything, the stimulus package is not large enough. Less than 24 hours after Mr. Boehner’s televised exercise in obstructionism, the heavy-equipment company Caterpillar announced that it was cutting 20,000 jobs, Sprint Nextel said it was eliminating 8,000, and Home Depot 7,000.

Maybe the Republicans don’t think there is an emergency. After all, it was Phil Gramm, John McCain’s economic guru, who told us last summer that the pain was all in our heads, that this was a “mental recession.”

The truth, of course, is that the country is hemorrhaging jobs and Americans are heading to the poorhouse by the millions. The stock markets and the value of the family home have collapsed, and there is virtual across-the-board agreement that the country is caught up in the worst economic disaster since at least World War II.

The Republican answer to this turmoil?

Tax cuts.

They need to go into rehab.

The question that I would like answered is why anyone listens to this crowd anymore. G.O.P. policies have been an absolute backbreaker for the middle class. (Forget the poor. Nobody talks about them anymore, not even the Democrats.) The G.O.P. has successfully engineered a wholesale redistribution of wealth to those already at the top of the income ladder and then, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, dared anyone to talk about class warfare.

A stark example of this unholy collaboration between the G.O.P. and the very wealthy was on display in the pages of this newspaper on Jan. 18. The Times’s Mike McIntire wrote an article about the first wave of federal bailout money for the financial industry, which was handed over by the Bush administration with hardly any strings attached. (Congress, under the control of the Democrats, should never have allowed this to happen, but the Democrats are as committed to fecklessness as the Republicans are to tax cuts.)

The public was told that the money would be used to loosen the frozen credit markets and thus help revive the economy. But as the article pointed out, there were bankers with other ideas. John C. Hope III, the chairman of the Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, in an address to Wall Street fat cats gathered at the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton, said:

“Make more loans? We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”

How’s that for arrogance and contempt for the public interest? Mr. Hope’s bank received $300 million in taxpayer bailout money.

The same article quoted Walter M. Pressey, president of Boston Private Wealth Management, which Mr. McIntire described as a healthy bank with a mostly affluent clientele. It received $154 million in taxpayer money.

“With that capital in hand,” said Mr. Pressey, “not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession, but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”
Take advantage, indeed. That, in a nutshell, is what the plutocracy is all about: taking unfair advantage.

When the G.O.P. talks, nobody should listen. Republicans have argued, with the collaboration of much of the media, that they could radically cut taxes while simultaneously balancing the federal budget, when, in fact, big income-tax cuts inevitably lead to big budget deficits. We listened to the G.O.P. and what do we have now? A trillion-dollar-plus deficit and an economy in shambles.

This is the party that preached fiscal discipline and then cut taxes in time of war. This is the party that still wants to put the torch to Social Security and Medicare. This is a party that, given a choice between Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, would choose Ronald Reagan in a heartbeat.

Why is anyone still listening?

Republicans have decided to "rule by hissy fit" as Atrios calls it. It is time to stop listening to them. After all the damage that John Boehner, Mitch McConnel, George W. Bush, Dick Chenney and all the GOP have done to our nation, they need to be relegated to the back of the closet. Democrats need to step up and take charge. Republicans are now lead by children who need to not be heard from.

Republicans May Have Lost On Auto Bailout

The White House is moving forward with a rescue plan for the automakers. Congressional Republicans are not happy about it. What was first declared a tactical victory for the GOP leadership by the likes of MSNBC's First Read, is now looking like a loss. Because Senate Republicans failed to reach a deal with Democrats and their union allies, it now looks like they will get none of the conditions they were pushing for. In a post from the New Republic, Jonathan Chait notes that the White House is poised to bailout the automakers anyway, suggesting that the "GOP maneuver will have been a total disaster" for the party. If the White House uses the TARP funds its doubtful that the carmakers will be required to accept all of the restructuring conditions the Republicans were pushing for Thursday. This is because if the White House does use TARP funds the Republicans will have lost most of their leverage. Right now they have 49 Senate, in January they will have at most 42 seats, maybe only 41, their ability to block a closure vote. When that happens the Democrats will cut a much better deal for themselves, for the union, and for the auto companies. There will be more protections for the workers and there will be tougher environmental standards. Thus Mitch McConnell who was pretty much being hailed as a genius as a leader of the opposition, will have won nothing.

Republicans had a chance to make this bill as appealing as possible, but they didn't want want to concede anything. They didn't want to concede anything on environmental standards. They didn't want to concede anything on worker rights. They wouldn't negotiate in good faith.

GOP's Strategy for Blocking Bailout Revealed

On today's Countdown guest host David Schuester revealed a new memo that explains the GOP's strategy for blocking a bridge loan to the auto industry:

Countdown has obtained a memo entitled "Action Alert - Auto Bailout," and sent Wednesday at 9:12am, to Senate Republicans. The names of the sender(s) and recipient(s) have been redacted in the copy Countdown obtained.

The Los Angeles Times reported that it was circulated among Senate Republicans. The brief memo outlines internal political strategy on the bailout, including the view that defeating the bailout represents a "first shot against organized labor." Senate Republicans blocked passage of the bailout late Thursday night, over its insistence on an immediate union pay cut.

From: Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:12 AM To: Subject: Action Alert -- Auto Bailout

Today at noon, Senators Ensign, Shelby, Coburn and DeMint will hold a press conference in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery. They would appreciate our support through messaging and attending the press conference, if possible. The message they want us to deliver is:

1. This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.

2. This rush to judgment is the same thing that happened with the TARP. Members did not have an opportunity to read or digest the legislation and therefore could not understand the consequences of it. We should not rush to pass this because Detroit says the sky is falling.

The sooner you can have press releases and documents like this in the hands of members and the press, the better. Please contact me if you need additional information. Again, the hardest thing for the democrats to do is get 60 votes. If we can hold the Republicans, we can beat this.

Watch David fill in for Keith Olbermann here:


The GOP is showing their true colors, and letting everyone know they will not work with the Obama administration to fix the problems of this nation. They killed the auto rescue plan Thursday night for purely partisan reasons. It never was about trying to help the automakers or the economy, but an effort to crush the working class and punish unions. There are many more people in line to suffer if the Big 3 go out of business, but Shelby and his band of brothers couldn't care less.

"Union Busting" is a high priority for these Conservatives fools that have allowed our country to be run into the ground. Can you name anything good that has come out of the eight years of Bush and Conservative dominance? So what is their solution? To take it out on the blue collars of America.

If anything this memo should be used as a reminder that the Employee Free Choice Act should be one of Obama's "high priorities" just after he takes office. Check out this video that explains a few things about it.

Update: Think Progress obtained the 20 senators who bailed out Wall Street but refused to rescue auto workers.»

Last night, the Senate failed to approve the auto rescue package, voting 52-35 in favor of the bill – just eight short of the 60 votes that were needed. Over on the Wonk Room, Dan Weiss takes a look at the 20 senators who voted for the Wall Street bailout but voted against the auto rescue last night (as well as the 10 others who skipped the vote last night, but voted for the financial bailout):

Yes to TARP, No to auto
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Sen. Kay Hutchison (R-TX)
Sen. John Isakson (R-GA)
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL)
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Sen. John Thune (R-SD)

Yes to TARP, Absent for auto
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Sen.Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Sen. John Sununu (R-NH)

Senator Biden was tending to transition duties, while John Kerry was in Poznan, Poland, participating in U.N. climate change talks. Alexander was home recovering from surgery.

Why did these other Senators feel auto workers weren’t as deserving as Wall Street? We’d like to know.

Colin Powell On The GOP and Rush Limbaugh

Years ago the Republican party embraced anger, hatred, and divisiveness, which is why I stopped supporting them. They turned to leaders like Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay. They hired men like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove who ran on scare tactics, and dividing the electorate. The Conservatives built a message machine with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck; people who preach anger, hatred, and divisiveness, which became the overall tone of conservative talk radio, and Faux News.

Now finally a prominent Republican is speaking out against this. Read about Powell's interview here.

The Republican party must stop "shouting at the world" and start listening to
minority groups if it is to win elections in the 21st century, former Secretary
of State Colin Powell said Thursday.

In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for Sunday's "GPS" program, President Bush's former secretary of state said his party's attempt "to use polarization for political advantage" backfired last month....

"I think the party has to stop shouting at the world and at the country,"Powell said.

"I think that the party has to take a hard look at itself, and I've talked to a number of leaders in recent weeks and they understand that." Powell, who says he still considers himself a Republican, said his party should also stop listening to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

"Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?" Powell asked. "Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?"

More on the Bailout

If you have been reading this blog, you know I have supported the idea of this bailout. Even though the management of the three companies has been bad, and I would have demanded change at the top, I would have supported this bailout. I also know that I would not have supported a bailout if these were normal times, but that's the thing these are not normal times. The dirty fact is that the three companies would not be in this much trouble if not for the financial crisis on Wall Street, and the credit crisis. This is why when that idiot Mitch McConnell comes on the air and says that the U.S. auto industry have only themselves to blame, her is either lying or an idiot. Actually they are not mutually exclusive.

Under the circumstances of today it is an extraordinarily irresponsible thing to do. The Senate Republicans were not, let me make this clear, WERE NOT trying to do things responsibly. They did not ever seem to consider extending the kind of financing that would allow GM and Chrysler to go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy rather than liquidation. That financing would have involved loans, not gifts. It would have allowed an orderly reorganization that they kept claiming they wanted. Instead Republicans are willing to let a million jobs to go down because they wanted to break the UAW.

We are in a recession. We already have millions losing their jobs. We already have an economy on the brink. We have a party of idiots in congress, what is worse the other party is one of weaklings.

In the middle of the worst downturn in half a century the idiots who make up the leadership of the Republican party decide to prove that they care about fiscal responsibility. This after years of being willing to spend money on whatever George W. Bush wanted. This after years of being willing to spend money on whatever lobbyists have written into laws for them. This after years of being willing to spend money like there was no tomorrow, putting this nation so far in debt we may never see it paid off.

The consequences to our economy sound delightful:

"With Congress failing to agree on a bailout for Detroit, the odds that General Motors and Chrysler will be insolvent by year's end are growing rapidly.

The companies have been warning that they would run out of money for some time, but crushing bills from their suppliers are coming due. It appeared unlikely that they could hold on until President-elect Barack Obama takes office next month, when he and a new Congress might be able to provide a lifeline, as a Congressional rescue this year looked increasingly unlikely. (...)

General Motors and Chrysler, for example, owe their suppliers a total of roughly $10
billion for parts that have been delivered. G.M. has held off paying them for weeks, and Chrysler is paying in small increments. But the cash shortages at G.M. and Chrysler are getting more severe, according to their top executives and other officials. (...)

Many of their suppliers are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy themselves, and do not have the luxury of extending credit much longer. (...)

When suppliers big and small start failing, the flow of parts to every automaker in the country will be disrupted because as suppliers typically sell their products to both American and foreign brands with plants in the United States."

"There's no question it will hit Toyota, Honda and Nissan too," said John Casesa, principal in the auto consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group.

"Many of the small suppliers will simply liquidate because they don't have the resources to go reorganize in Chapter 11 bankruptcy," Mr. Casesa said.

"They'll just go away."

Here was what Rachel Maddow reported on this story before the Republicans fully sank the deal:

LibertyAir Blog

Why Do I Think Republicans Are Idiots

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell joined other Republican lawmakers in opposition to the White House-backed rescue bill passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
He and other Republicans said wages and benefits for employees of Detroit's Big Three should be renegotiated to bring them in line with those paid by Japanese carmakers Toyota, Honda and Nissan in the United States.

This is a stupid argument, and dishonest. Hourly wages for UAW workers at GM factories are actually less than those paid by Toyota Motor Corp at its older U.S. factories. GM says the average union laborer makes $29.78 per hour, while Toyota says it pays about $30 per hour. But the unionized factories have far higher benefit costs. So the Republicans are asking UAW workers to take wage cuts that put them even further behind. Could this be because they want more workers to migrate south? There are plans for 18 more state subsidized factories to be built in the south, could they be trying to build their pool of workers?

GM says its total hourly labor costs are now $69, including wages, pensions and health care for active workers, plus the pension and health care costs of more than 432,000 retirees and spouses. Toyota says its total costs are around $48. The Japanese automaker has far fewer retirees and its pension and health care benefits are not as rich as those paid to UAW workers. In fact the only country that Toyota has to pay health care benefits is the United States, so they are working at great advantage over GM. Toyota's plants in the U.S. are so new they have few pensions to deal with.

So when you see those sanctimonious windbags of the right on the cable shows, know they are lying assholes who are threatening the economy of the country to break an ally of the Democratic party.

Here is what Katrina Vanden Heuvel of the Nation Magazine had to say about it on MSNBC's Morning Joe:


LibertyAir Blog

Get Ready

It is going to be a bad day on Wall Street. This is what we can expect now that the $14-billion emergency bailout for U.S. automakers collapsed in the Senate. The deal to help the auto industry fell a part last night as Republicans tried to break the UAW. Don't believe those lying Repuglicans, this had nothing to do with some principle, it is all about breaking the union. The collapse came after bipartisan talks broke down over union wage cuts, the Repugs wanted the union to basically handover the farm.

Markets oversea's are already falling hard on the news. U.S. Markets are expected to fall. Harry Reid has said he hopes Bush will tap the $700 billion Wall Street bailout fund for emergency aid to the automakers. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC have said they could be weeks from collapse. Ford Motor Co. says it does not need federal help now, but its survival is far from certain, and if GM and Chrysler fall it will need help.

The implosion followed an unprecedented marathon negotiations in Washington among labor, the auto industry and lawmakers who bargained into the night in efforts to salvage the auto bailout at a time of soaring job losses and widespread economic turmoil.

The group came close to agreement, but it stalled over the union's refusal to agree to wage cuts before their current contract expires in 2011. Republicans, in turn, balked at giving the automakers federal aid.

Leave it to the Repuglicans to put ideology above country.

Senate Republicans Threaten to Throw Nation into another Great Depression

Republicans are idiots.

Its that simple.

Only these idiots could think that this is a wise course for the nation. If I have to listen to one more sanctimonious windbag from the right come onto the radio or TV and say that the auto companies should just file for bankruptcy, I am going to scream. Do any of these idiots even know the laws that govern bankruptcy? To file for Chapter 11 you have to be able to get banks to offer lines of credit to back up the company. If these companies could get lines of credit, they would not be asking for the bailout.

Now the idiots in the Republican party are ready to force this nation to lose another 2 million jobs, while in the throes of a massive recession, so they can break the unions. And that's what this is about folks, this is a play to break the unions. Remeber these are the same Republican idiots who were happy to throw the stock market into a tail spin because they didn't want to bail out the banks, which lead to the credit crisis that is now bringing down the auto industry. Now they don't want to bail out the car industry.

Yesterday the House passed a bill to speed $14 billion in loans to Detroit's automakers. But it does not look like it will get past the Senate because Republican opposition could derail the emergency aid in the Senate. The Republicans still hold 49 seats, and it looks like they plan to use this number to challenging lame-duck President George W. Bush on the package. They are lamely arguing that any support for the domestic auto industry should carry significant concessions from autoworkers and creditors and reject tougher environmental rules imposed by House Democrats.

See this has nothing to do about the economy, or basic values, it's all about destroying the unions and the environment.

GOP backs off claim that Pelosi’s ‘partisan’ speech made them vote against the bailout.

Yesterday, after the proposed bipartisan bailout package failed to pass, the House Republican leadership cried their eye's out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosis had hurt their feelings in a press conference. One after another we saw Republican after Repuglican cry that Nancy Pelosi was to blame for GOP opposition to the bill.

I guess today after being ridiculed by Democrats, media observers, and even some conservatives, those cry baby Republicans are now walking back that claim:

– Rep. Michele Bachmann: “We are not babies who suck their thumbs.”

– Minority Whip Roy Blunt: “I think you don’t want to give too much blame to that speech.”

– Rep. John Shadegg: “It was embarrassing for leadership on both parties to lose the bill, so they went out and made a stupid claim.”

– Rep. Marsha Blackburn: “That speech was not the reason I voted against the bill.”

– Rep. Mike Conaway said that Pelosi's speech "didn’t" have any effect on his vote and that he "didn't" know of any lawmakers who turned against the bill because of the speech.

So now that House Republicans are insisting their vote against the bailout yesterday had nothing to do with Pelosi’s supposedly “partisan” speech, you might wonder why at least 10 Republican Representatives flipped their votes. Minority Whip Blunt really thought he had these votes for the bill, right up until they voted no.

Now NBC’s Andrea Mitchell is reporting that conservatives may have been taking their marching orders from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who “was whipping against this up until the last minute” — despite the fact that he issued a statement supporting the bill as the vote was about to take place:

MITCHELL: I’m told reliably by leading Republicans who are close to him, he was whipping against this up until the last minute when he issued that face-saving statement. Newt Gingrich was telling people in the strongest possible language
that this was a terrible deal, not only that it was a terrible deal, that it was a disaster, it was the end of democracy as we know it, it was socialism. And then at the last minute comes out with a statement when the vote is already in place.

Could Newt Gingrich have recognized that there is no real leadership in the Republican Party? Could he be situating himself so he can be seen as the God Father of the Republicans? It will be interesting to watch.

RNC Ad, Was Cut, & Sent Out Before the Vote

Yesterday the Republican leadership tried to blame Nancy Pelosis for the failure of Republicans to support the bailout package, yet now it is beginning to slip out that the Republican National Committee's new ad critical of the the Wall Street "bailout" was produced and sent to television stations in key states before the bailout vote failed.

Get it? The Repuglicans were planning on the bill passing, and then were going to attack Democrats who voted FOR the bill.

Talk about gutless Repuglican politicians. Put the economy in harms way for a few cheap political points.

A vote for McCain/Palin is...

Is a vote for a Bridge to Nowhere. John Amato of Crooks and Liars has a great post today about how the media wants to make presidential elections about personalities alone and not on the issues. He writes that an election is about restoring some order to our country, and he has started a list that needs to be added to.

Please add to the list.

A vote for McCain equals more War.
A vote for McCain equals No universal health care.
A vote for McCain equals a continued collapsing economy.
A vote for McCain equals higher gas prices.
A vote for McCain equals no help for the housing market.
A vote for McCain equals a further erosion of woman’s rights.
A vote for McCain equals ideologue judges being placed throughout the country.
A vote for McCain equals more Big Oil in the White House.
A vote for McCain equals more Global Warming.
A vote for McCain equals more faith-based foreign policy.
A vote for McCain equals more tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations while the middle class continues to fund policies they don’t benefit from.
A vote for McCain equals more denial of science.
A vote for McCain equals the meteoric rise of American Fascism
A vote for McCain equals the continued dumbing down of America.
A vote for McCain equals a complete loss of hope; or a vote for McCain equals American despair A vote for McCain equals a vote for the American Taliban.
A vote for McCain equals a vote for more corruption in government.
A vote for McCain equals a vote for more power for K Street.
A vote for McCain equals perpeptual war
A vote for McCain/Palin means rightwing, extrememist Supreme Court nominees and the beginning of totalitarian America.