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Month: September 2008

Bailout FAIL. Working Americans PWNED.

It seems as though Congress and the Bush administration are nearing approval of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. It was clear from the get go that low- and middle-income people were not going to be the winners here, no matter the specifics of the package; some details that are coming out now about the current state of the deal are only confirming that prediction. From the Washington Post:

Democrats also made a number of concessions, abandoning demands that bankruptcy judges be empowered to modify home mortgages on primary residences for people in foreclosure. They also agreed not to dedicate a portion of any profits from the bailout program to an affordable housing fund that Republicans claimed would primarily assist social service organizations that support the Democratic Party, the official said.

The New York Times does report that the package “requires the government to use its new role as owner of distressed mortgage-backed securities to make more aggressive efforts to prevent home foreclosures,” but reaffirms that “some Democrats had sought to direct 20 percent of any such profits [from the governmental purchase of assets at prices lower than they may one day be worth] to help create affordable housing, but Republicans opposed that and demanded that all profits be returned to the Treasury.”

I don’t claim to be any expert on economics, but it seems to me that the benefit to normal working Americans (i.e. “Main Street”) will be quite limited. The whole rigmarole about taxpayers (hopefully) being repayed for the bailout through the government receiving equity stakes in rescued companies is cold comfort given that we can’t trust or expect the government to spend that recovered money on things that actually help improve the lives of low- and middle-income Americans, like education, health care, affordable housing, or welfare.

Well, I should be clear – corporate welfare is a-ok, as this entire bailout package demonstrates. But welfare for individuals and families who are just trying to survive? Nah, that kind of welfare doesn’t fly, nor does the affordable housing that might help rescue them from this collapsing housing market. So Wall Street screws working-class Americans with the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, which then backfires and contributes to Wall Street getting screwed, and then Wall Street are the only ones who can really count on being bailed out? Sounds like a big ol’ FAIL to me.

Cross-posted at AngryBrownButch

The stupid, it burns

Kathleen Parker suggests that David Zucker (director of Airplane!, The Naked Gun and Scary Movie 3) deserves a Nobel Prize because his latest film makes fun of Michael Moore. Are conservatives really that desperate for something funny and entertaining that also reflects their political ideology? Are the Left Behind books just not cutting it anymore?

Here’s how Parker describes the film:

As the title suggests, the story line is based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Ghosts of the past — George Washington (Voight), Gen. George S. Patton (Grammer) and John F. Kennedy (Chriss Anglin) — squire America-bashing filmmaker “Michael Malone” around to see how the world would look if America hadn’t bothered to fight any wars.

Malone, brilliantly played by Farley, has joined forces with a left-wing group, MoveAlong.org, to ban the Fourth of July. He also has been hired by terrorists to make a propaganda film to help recruit a diminishing supply of suicide bombers.

And you thought suicide bombers weren’t funny.

The joke begins when two would-be terrorists enter a New York City subway station and are met at a security checkpoint by two NYPD officers. Just as they’re about to be searched, in rushes a squad of ACLU attorneys with a stop-search order.

“Thank Allah for the ACLU,” says one of the terrorists — and we’re off!

The vignettes keep coming so fast, it’s hard to keep up.

One memorable scene has “Rosie O’Connell” appearing on The O’Reilly Factor to promote her new documentary, The Truth About Radical Christians. The documentary shows two priests who hijack an airplane and storm the cockpit brandishing crucifixes. Next, we see two nuns festooned with explosives boarding a bus as passengers shout: “Oh no! Not the Christians!”

Another standout has Patton’s ghost showing Malone a modern-day plantation full of happy cotton pickers who thank Malone for being such a humane slave owner. Malone staggers at the sight only to learn that this is his plantation and these are his slaves — thanks to anti-war sentiment that prevented the Civil War.

In a line that filmmakers are still debating whether to cut, a smiling Gary Coleman finishes polishing a car and tosses his rag to someone: “Hey, Barack!”

No, he didn’t say that. Yes. He. Did.

And for spreading this message, Parker says, “maybe Zucker deserves not an Oscar, but a Nobel Prize.”

I need to go rinse the dumb out of my brain now.

Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

Promote away.

The rules for newbies: Post a short description of a blog post (or posts) you’ve written recently, along with a link. Make it specific — don’t just link to your whole blog. And check out all the other self-promoted pieces.

Not My Gal

You can submit to the Not My Gal video project via YouTube; or, if you don’t have video capacity, remember that you can send your voting story into fauxrealtho-at-gmail-dot-com.

If Roe Goes

Linda Hirshman has a great piece up in the Washington Post about the realities of Roe going. One thing she points out is that the face of the United States post-Roe would be considerably different than pre-Roe.

But it’s not 1972. The climate then was one of growing sympathy for women seeking abortion, triggered in part by stories of those who sought one after realizing that their children would be deformed by the anti-morning-sickness drug thalidomide. Social liberalism was rising; religions weren’t much engaged in politics. Today, the politics of abortion have changed. In addition to old laws that would spring back up should Roe be reversed, the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute lists four states — Louisiana, Missisippi, North and South Dakota — as having trigger laws explicitly aimed at making abortion criminal upon Roe’ s demise, and seven others that have committed to acting to the extent that the court may allow.

The trigger laws are much harsher than the pre- Roe laws; Louisiana’s, for instance, would allow abortion only in case of a threat to the mother’s life or to a life-sustaining organ. In 1972, roughly 40 percent of the women who got abortions in the United States did so outside their state of residence. There are now more than a million abortions a year. Can you imagine how many women will travel elsewhere if their home states prohibit abortion unless the mother’s life is at risk?

The difference today is that some states with criminal abortion laws will almost certainly also forbid their residents to cross state lines to obtain an abortion. Missouri already allows civil litigation against anyone who helps a minor cross state lines to get an abortion without parental consent. Congress was well along to passing a law making it criminal to take a minor from a state requiring parental consent when the Democrats won in 2006 and stopped it.

The anti-choice strategy has been to chip away at abortion rights, while simultaneously creating a back-up legal structure that will kick in the second Roe is overturned. The anti-choice goal isn’t just to declare Roe invalid; it’s to establish fetal personhood. And if that’s the case, state laws allowing for abortion rights won’t matter.

Read the whole article. This election matters for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the future of the Supreme Court and reproductive rights.

Get Your Wonk On: The Presidential Debate Drinking Game

It’s Friday and we’re gearing up for the first presidential election of 2008 featuring Barack “Yes We Can” Obama and John “Did You Know I Was a POW?” McCain. It’s time for us lay-wonks to get our drink on.

  • Every time someone mentions “hope” or “change,” drink.
  • Drink double every time the mention of “change” comes from McCain.
  • For every mention of “my fellow Americans,” drink.
  • Every time the candidate steers away from the question asked to highlight his own talking points (we call that a Palin), drink twice.
  • For every mention of “Main Street,” drink.
  • Every time a candidate rephrases a repeat talking point, drink.
  • If McCain shames Obama for not dropping out of the first debate, drink.
  • For every mention of activist judges, drink.
  • For every mention of failed bipartisanship efforts that failed because the opposing party are a bunch of sniveling assbabies, drink.
  • Every time someone mentions terrorism, drink. If someone mentions terrorists in a non-terrorist context, like the Iraq War, drink twice.
  • If McCain blows a racist dogwhistle, drink thrice.
  • If McCain sounds like he’s trying to unseat an opposing party instead of a fellow Republican, chug.
  • When McCain grumpily alludes to the more important things he has to do, chug.
  • Spit out your beer and yell at the TV if McCain insinuates Obama is a) Muslim or b) the antiChrist.
  • Finish your drink if someone mentions a Clinton.

Insert responsible remark about not drinking and driving here, and we highly suggest that you stay away from shots unless you’re planning on a good n’ violent drunkle by 9:30 EST. Don’t end up on COPS.

Party on in the comments, dudes.