And re: Darth Cheney – isn’t it funny how much of the fabled GOP machismo turns out to be ginned-up image-building overcompensation when you take a closer look at it? It’s almost enough to make a fellow wonder.

Schumer, Barney Frank, Bernanke, Paulson, and Pelosi are still creating $trillions out of thin air to save big New York banks, financial houses, and hedge funds, while throwing mortgage holders under the bus.

This plan is hopeless. NY banks are broke.

Freeze mortgage paper, keep people in their homes, and start over.

Brokers churned properties and pocketed bigger profits.

Mortgage lenders offered paper people couldn’t afford and they made big profits. Then they sold that paper to other people in bundles, so nobody could see the garbage inside.

Everybody was happy to get the ‘valuable’ paper on the cheap.

But, now the musical chairs is coming to an end and some people are going to be left holding the bag full of hot air.

Who’s to blame? All the greedy SOBs who didn’t mind putting ordinary people out of their homes to make a few more bucks.

If only we could separate their craziness from the ordinary lives most people want to live.

Very week dollar, record high oil prices, a rapidly declining housing market, gold at an all time high(that should be an indicator of what the rich are doing for you estute friends and neighbors out there) and yet the stock market is hanging in there?????? Makes no sense to me….maybe it’s the globalization of our economy….which I am on record as being a staunch opponent off. Reason to disagree with the brainwashing we get from media and politicians on a daily basis???…….. WE DON’T HAVE THE CONTROL WE USED TO HAVE WITH OUR FISCAL AND MONETARY POLICIES…..like it or not we’re in bed with a country that damn near relies on slave labor in China, the gangster mafioso style former remnants of the old USSR, Europe and India.

Don’t forget friends, China is buying lots and lots of our bonds and for those who have done some analysis, if and when they decide to sell(basically a tool for them to declar war on us financially)the price of bonds will plummet and the interest owed by our govt on the secondary market will not be a pretty sight. I also can’t help but mention here that miss Hillary pantsuit exposed herself as the double talking, flip flop and flailer that she is. She’s on record as supporting Spitzer’s plan to grant illegals licenses……now Spitzer, there’s a sellout for you…tough on corporate crime to get elected(I loved him then)and then sells out his state with this gargage illegal license plan. over 70% of New Yorkers oppose this plan but he wants to ram it thru anyway…by some sort of executive order I guess. Question Elliot…..why not submit legislation for your dumb idea and let the people speak and see this dumb proposal get shot down?…..Shallow politics.

Warm and positive thought for Jane.

Steve — This is her last surgery today, so we are all excited for her to get to the end of this particular road. She is such a kick-ass chick about this sort of thing, too. *g* (As if you’d expect anything less from Jane…)

She’s a dynamo & so are you, AWA the other bloggers here @ FDL. So late to this thread since buried in work. May I say, according to my daughter & future son-in-law, our yard haunt rocked last night in Santa Monica.

Re: canned hunts: I’m w/yr. Dad, CHS. That’s not sport or hunting for food, that’s killing for the thrill derived. BTW, the pheasants released in canned hunts are raised in pens & expect humans to feed them. So they go toward humans, looking to be fed by them. KABOOM. Some sport, eh?

Biodun @ 261

Time to close the US Embassy in Baghdad? Fat chance! It’s the biggest embassy in the world!

I read recently that State Department officials were forced to go to Vietnam. The difference is I think that those who would be sent to Iraq would be sent out into the hinterlands as part of development teams where they would be at considerable physical risk even if they are accompanied by US troops. I don’t know what exactly the duties were in Vietnam but I doubt it included sending many of them into the countryside. If anyone knows more about that, it would be interesting to know.

Saigon was hardly a combat zone for most of the war. DoS can’t go outside the Green Zone without Blackwater or their equivalent. Totally different situation, can’t really be compared.

Sissy @ 92

Personally, I’ve always been fond of Charles Pierce’s characterization of it as the “Avignon Presidency.” I also like his nickname for W — “C-plus Augustus.” /snark

Could you explain the reference to Avignon.
Since I can’t get the idea to square with the following:
The Avignon papacies lasted from 1309 to 1377 and there were seven of them in exile, all French. The Pont d’avignon is where one dances.
What am I missing?

The papacy was kidnapped by the French. Here, the presidency has been kidnapped by the Republicans.

Hugh @ 20

As for descriptors for this era, I thought it was generally referred to as the “clusterf*ck of the Bush years” although the Mafia Presidency works for me too.

Personally, I’ve always been fond of Charles Pierce’s characterization of it as the “Avignon Presidency.” I also like his nickname for W — “C-plus Augustus.” /snark

Could you explain the reference to Avignon.
Since I can’t get the idea to square with the following:
The Avignon papacies lasted from 1309 to 1377 and there were seven of them in exile, all French. The Pont d’avignon is where one dances.
What am I missing?

selise @ 265

then i am very glad you are not a cop. i’ve seen the damage they can do when they get pissed.

That was a metaphor for mashing the send button!

i got the trigger metaphor… my comment was in reference to this:

then I thought about how, if I had been that cop, I would have whipped his ass with more than a atser when he said that!

but would be happy to know i misunderstood.

Christy sez,

– I’ll take a stab at an answer for Duncan: remember the “malaise” of the Carter years? Sure, some of it was manufactured media hype, but there was a palpable sense that we were on a losing streak for a while there between gas rationing and Iranian hostages and so forth. The Bush Years make that look like a momentary blip, and people know it. We are going to be cleaning up after King George for several generations — because any and everything he has touched has gone badly in the end, either due to poor planning, no planning, utter lack of comprehension…or denial of the truth. And the worst part of it? We still have over a year to endure it. If that isn’t enough, Dick Cheney is still pulling strings. And the public knows that, too. People want to be able to make a difference, turn things around, get us back on the right track…you name the cliche. But how? Honestly, with this crowd in the White House…how? Now there is a question worth discussing for a while, eh?

I’m sure you know the answer, Christy– but its been left out of your list of things “gone badly in the end”– the factor of high crimes and misdemeanors. The answer is called impeachment.

Can Nancy Pelosi be charged with obstruction of justice? (No, I’m not entirely serious. Not entirely.)

Bob in HI

Hi Bob, I think Mr. Fein made the point some time ago that she is not upholding her oath to the Constitution.