MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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michael o. allen

Hockey moms, Joe Sixpack, aw shucks!

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At some point last, GOP Vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin declared she was not going to be debating:

“I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people.”

I wish they could have stopped the debate at that point and ushered her off the stage. Palin’s performance was audacious, mixing outright lies with distortions to mask ignorance and idiocy. Truly unprincipled, Palin said any and everything that came into her head, whether germane to the question being asked, or not.

Any minute now, John McCain should be suspending his campaign so that they can celebrate Palin’s debate victory.

October 3, 2008
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Unions workers & Obama

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AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka on Racism and Obama

From David Moberg in The Nation magazine:

On a rainy afternoon in early September, Jeff Ampey, a member of the Communications Workers union, knocked on the door of Frances Brady’s home in Galesburg, part of the historically conservative “Dutch Triangle” in southwest Michigan. He was walking through the neighborhood as part of an AFL-CIO effort to contact union members about the presidential election.

Brady, an 81-year-old former paper worker who retired before most of the area’s many paper mills closed, said she was “not 100 percent sure” about whom she would support. Ampey politely left some brochures–one rebutting common false rumors about Barack Obama (such as that he’s a Muslim), the other about Obama “building an economy that works for all.”

When I called back the next day, Brady had made up her mind. “I’m a Democrat in my heart,” she said. “Last time I voted for Bush, and I said I’d never vote for them again. I’ve got a grandson who was in Afghanistan three years, and they could call him back. On the economy, I think Bush looks the other way. Obama, I’m a little bit unsure sometimes because he doesn’t have experience, but he’s for the average American person and the poor, and I think he’s a very smart man.”

There are a lot of wavering voters, especially older whites like Brady, who lean Democratic but aren’t sure about Obama. In the final weeks of the campaign, the labor movement could play a critical role in winning them over and tipping the race. Despite their dwindling ranks, voters from union households make up about a quarter of the electorate (in this battleground state, that figure is around 37 percent). Organized labor can also reach out to the 2.5 million members of Working America, the AFL-CIO’s new community affiliate, as well as to millions of retirees like Brady (many of whom will learn from the union-affiliated Alliance for Retired Americans that McCain wants to privatize Social Security).

Continue . . .

October 2, 2008
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Palin’s understated brilliance

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I know all of us are holding our breath for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to wow America all over again during her vice-presidential debate with Delaware’s Sen. Joe Biden Thursday night.

One newspaper has called Mrs. Palin’s debating skills “formidable.” The New York Times says she’s a confident debater. In fact, the Obama campaign, calling her a “terrific debater,” is thinking of suspending the vice-presidential portion of the fall campaign.

I thought, maybe, we should imbibe a little her recent series of triumphant interviews with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric:

Couric: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to . . . cari . . . I don’t know, you know . . . reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

Ms. Couric then brought up the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, suggesting the money could be better spent by regular Americans. Mrs. Palin burst forth in incandescent rhetoric. Her answer was nothing short of historic in its scope and grasp of policy details, mastery of nuance:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

October 1, 2008
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Where it really hurts

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As I am in the habit of doing, I fired off this e-mail to a family friend working overseas this morning:

Can you believe what’s going on here? The country is going down the tubes.

* * *

In some countries I know, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (he cashed out from Goldman Sachs in 2006 with half a billion dollars) would already be shot by now and George Bush would have already fled the country.

There’s a problem with our democracy when the perps are proudly walking around, insisting we hand them unfettered access to more money, or else they’ll take down the economy. And then, they follow through on that threat.

Here’s my friend’s response:

Hi, Michael:

I am distressed by what’s going on multiple levels. On a personal level, we have lost lots of money — at least on paper. I have refused to sell anything we set aside for our retirement (only a few years away for me, but looking longer now!!!), because once you sell, that confirms the paper loss, but the sliding markets came so fast it was hard to keep up with them (not when we ordinary working folk have such stressful jobs to keep up with!!!).

On other levels, I am filled with disgust to now realize what a party Wall Street had at our expense these last 10 years — inventing these reckless new investment vehicles filled so much with mortgages sold to people who the sharpies knew would not be able to afford to pay them back — but which they came up with a term for, “sub-prime,” that somehow made it seem okay.  (Once again, the U.S. media, like it did on Iraq, blew it on this story. We always do a decent job after the shit hits the fan, but never before; then again, Americans never pay attention until it is too late.)

The party appears to have been at our expense because so many banks bought those investment vehicles and these are the banks that the government is now rescuing because those investment vehicles failed when mortgages went south when, lo and behold, people defaulted on their mortgages.

And no one in government was watching. The credit agencies that approved all of these deals in glowing reports to potential investors were not regulated by the government, not in any substantive way because of the de-regulation era promoted by Bush, both houses of Congress, McCain and to some extent, Clinton. The credit agencies were in cahoots with the companies that brought these investment deals to market because they had financial relationships with them.

In effect, for a decade on Wall Street, there was no official watchdog. It was party time. How could anyone in their right mind expect people in pursuit of profit to not do whatever they can to pursue as much profit as they can?

Especially when no one is watching!

I am of a mixed mind about the rescue package. I understand the taxpayer revolt against it, but I do worry about the collapse of the banking system, meaning the credit system. If banks cannot loan money to one another, or to businesses, then the economy stops. Some signal of faith needs to be given. Whether this package is the right one I am not sophisticated enough to know, but we are teetering on the edge of a disaster is my gut feeling. Too bad it is happening when The House is up for re-election in a month, and every member knows that his or her re-election, as never before, is virtually solely dependent on this one vote, something we have not seen in our lives.

What has also emerged in all of this is that we need a leader, and clearly Obama is that man. McCain’s alleged suspension of his campaign and silent attempt to resolve the crisis, along with his selection of the Alaskan moose, are disasters. The polls show even dim-witted Americans coming to this conclusion. We can only hope it is true, because we need a leader.

Best to you and the family.

G

 

October 1, 2008
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Drink heavily; recycle

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An investment banker said of the current Wall Street calamity:

“If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.

With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000.

With AIG, you would have less than $15 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 dollars worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214 Cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to Drink Heavily and recycle!”

September 30, 2008
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Bush Fails–again

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Drinking. Again?

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog reports:

We now find out that the Republican party cut ads, and sent them to TV stations around the country, opposing the bailout bill even BEFORE Pelosi spoke before the vote yesterday. The Republican National Committee, the official “party,” was planning on the bill passing, and then was going to attack Democrats who voted FOR the bill. Talk about calloused. So in fact, the Republican party was playing games, playing politics, with our economy. Did the RNC tell individual members of Congress that they were going to be running ads attacking anyone who voted for the bill? Is this why Republican members voted against the bill 2 to 1 (while Dems voted for the bill almost 2 to 1), sending Wall Street into a nose dive? And what about John McCain? What does it say about him when his own party is secretly undercutting the proposal that he claimed to “save the day” on?

In the linked story from Politico.com:

RNC ad, was cut, sent out before package failed

The Republican National Committee’s new advertisement critical of the the Wall Street “bailout” was produced and sent to television stations in key states before the package failed, officials at two stations said.

“Wall Street Squanders our money. And Washington is forced to bail them out with — you guessed it — our money. Can it get any worse?” asks the ad’s narrator, as the words “BAILOUT WITH OUR MONEY” cross the screen. (The answer: Obama’s plans would make it worse.)

The ad, however, seems to assume that it can safely attack a successful plan. And the reason may be the timing: Though it started airing this morning, the spot was released to stations yesterday morning, ad executives at stations in Michigan and Pennsylvania said.

Kae Buck of WLNS in Lansing said her station received the at at 7:55 a.m. Monday.  Luanne Russell of Pittsburgh’s WTAE said her station received it at 10:49 Monday morning.

Continue . . .

September 30, 2008
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Outdated but still funny

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Welcome wagon

Serrano Votes Against Wall Street Bailout – NY Times BlogShare, Yesterday at 8:31pm
Four of New York State’s 29 representatives voted no on the $700 billion economic bailout package that the House of Representatives rejected on Monday in a historic vote, 228 to 205. The four no votes from New York State came from three Democrats — José E. Serrano of the Bronx, Kirsten E. Gillibrand from the Albany area, and Maurice D. Hinchey of south-central New York — and one Republican, John R. Kuhl Jr. of central-western New York. (See the roll call.)
Mr. Serrano, a Bronx Democrat and the only House member from New York City to vote no, explained his decision in a phone interview:
I felt it was not a situation where you should be giving large amount of money to be administered by the same people who caused the problem. I just felt it was not right to begin with.
Second, I didn’t find enough provisions that satisfied me in terms of the oversight. In so many ways it was just giving them a blank check.
I represent the poorest district in the nation, located within the richest nation and within walking distance of the wealthiest district in the nation, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
When Wall Street was doing great and these guys were giving each other $50 million bonuses, I couldn’t see anything happen to the Bronx that made me say, ‘Wow, there’s some good from what’s happening on Wall Street.’ So now, they want $700 billion — which could amount to over $1 trillion, and who knows how much more later on – and that debt would be incurred by the people of the South Bronx, directly or indirectly.
Next year, when we want to increase funding for education, health care or veterans affairs – or just keep them at the same level – we will be told that we can’t because we can’t pay down the debt.
Despite strong pressure from the House leadership, Mr. Serrano added, “I couldn’t in good conscience” support the rescue package.
Mr. Serrano acknowledged that Wall Street’s collapse could hurt Main Street even further. If so, “do my constituents suffer?” he asked rhetorically, replying, “Yes, but what was presented to us did not help my constituents at all. It in fact put them at risk, because it would saddle them with debt. Where was Wall Street when we were cutting the taxes of zillionaires and driving up the debt?”

September 30, 2008
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