Sink your teeth into this, Bush and Paulson, cave-in leaders.
Sink your teeth into this, Bush and Paulson, cave-in leaders.
The House GOP leadership crashed the stock market on purpose. So says this blog. Majority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Roy Blunt, who officially supported the bailout bill, claimed that there were a dozen or so “no” votes from House GOP ranks that turned the tide, surprising even them. But were they really surprised? First, watch this video at 4:10 where Cantor waves some papers around, citing Pelosi’s speech as the reason that 12 members switched their promised votes from “yes” to “no.” Note how he even claims that Democrats voted no because Pelosi’s speech was “too partisan.” This would be laughable if it didn’t involve the destruction of the retirement funds of millions of Americans. Then, watch from about 7:30 to the end, as Roy Blunt (who was in charge of rounding up “yes” votes) talks about the stock market crashed caused by the “surprise no vote” as if it were an instructive lesson for the country.
Who are these people who surprised everyone and wrecked the Dow Jones as the world watched in horror, and what do they want? Why does Blunt insist that you listen to them? This blog will not just tell you why, but show you why. Here is a RealPlayer video link of the actual press conference of the House GOP “Republican Study Group” which “surprised” their leadership by voting no on the bill. Note especially the zero-subtlety demands made repeatedly by Steve King, R-Iowa. He keeps repeatedly demanding removal of the “mark to market rule,” which requires companies to value their assets at market prices. If the rule were lifted at this time, all of the institutions holding the “toxic paper” mortgage securities would be able to value them at the price at which they were originally bought, which is outrageously and falsely high. What he’s actually demanding is an enormous deregulatory move that would be worth millions of dollars to certain of his friends if enacted. Most of the other reps in the press conference cannot even articulate what it is they supposedly want, yet they crashed the stock market over it, and none of them say that they were offended by some Pelosi speech. King “helpfully” keeps shoving the others aside to hammer home the point, it’s about the regulatory change he wants. That is why these people crashed the stock market on Monday. To force another vote in three days so they can get their “mark to market” deregulation for a tiny, tiny group of rich high finance friends.
In one of the truly great coincidences in the history of numerology, the number of “deeply offended Republicans,” who put feeling over country, turns out to be exactly the number you would have needed to reverse the vote. - Barney Frank, September, 29, 2009 press conference
UPDATE: Newt “government shutdown” Gingrich was involved in the last-minute backstab.
MSNBC has already shown the footage. McCain did this in Columbus, OH where yesterday he stood up an entire hand-picked “Town Hall” audience with no notice and no explanation for his actions.
Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.
“I’ve never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I’m not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn’t want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up.“That’s not leadership. That’s watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause.
McCain seized the credit for “leadership” on the House vote passage, and it in fact did not pass. He politicized the moment, and took the losing side as well. And it’s on videotape.
95 DEMOCRATS VOTED NO, 133 REPUBLICANS - DOW PLUNGES 700 POINTS Check out Boehner’s weepy attempt to get rebelling House Republicans to change their mind and vote yes (video at the link). You can’t negotiate with idiots, and Boehner is learning hte hard way.
Rich Lowry says Pelosi is at fault because she gave a “partisan speech” prior to the vote. In a GOP press conference, Reps. Boehner and Eric Cantor made the same argument.
The “rebel” House Republicans are on the record, they did not vote “no” to save the American people from the ripoff, or for reasons of conservative principle. They voted “no” because of partisan reasons that have nothing to do with those ideals. John McCain, who supported the bill in its final version last night in his final statement on the subject before the vote, is not in Washington and did nothing to stop his side from voting it down.
PRICELESS UPDATE: Rep. Roy Blunt, R-MO, negotiation leader, blames the Jewish holidays for the vote.
This is the definition of terrorism. Imagine if this happened in a day care center at a Christian church, anywhere in the US.
The Greatest Ripoff in American History is not doing anything to help the markets, anyway. Down 300 points with Bush begging passage.
Think we’ll see any McCain ads showing clips from the debate? Notice that all the premature “McCain Wins Debate” ads were taken down, never to return?
This keeps happening and that’s just fine with John McCain.
It’s been just over 7 days, what modifications have been made by the Democrats to what was originally the greatest ripoff in American history? I guess we’ll see, and get less than 6 hours to look at it before the vote.
Adding to prior reports about the supposedly all-important bailout meeting in the White House convened after John McCain’s “campaign suspension” stunt, the Washington Post reports that Barack Obama directly confronted McCain on the emptiness of his position on the government response to the financial crisis:
Boehner was blunt. The plan Paulson laid out would not win the support of the vast majority of House Republicans. It had been improved on the edges, with an oversight board and caps on the compensation of participating executives. But it had to be changed at the core. He did not mention the insurance alternative, but Democrats did. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pressed Boehner hard, asking him if he really intended to scrap the deal and start again.No, Boehner replied, he just wanted his members to have a voice. Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: “What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?” he asked repeatedly. McCain did not answer.
One Republican in the room said it was clear that the Democrats came into the meeting with a “game plan” aimed at forcing McCain to choose between the administration and House Republicans. “They had taken McCain’s request for a meeting and trumped it,” said this source.
Congressional aides from both parties were standing in the lobby of the West Wing, unaware of the discord inside the Cabinet room, when McCain emerged alone, shook the hands of the Marines at the door and left. The aides were baffled. The plan had been for a bipartisan appearance before the media, featuring McCain, Obama and at least a firm statement in favor of intervention. Now, one of the leading men was gone.
It may have taken 48 hours, but this is major, major report finally illustrating what really happened in the meeting. Barack Obama is in fact leading his Party and is trying to lead the country out of the financial crisis, unlike Bush and McCain, who are contemptuously joking around while Rome burns. This also explains why Obama did not “got for the jugular” in the debate; he knows he has McCain outwitted and outmaneuvered in the ongoing fight for over the bailout plan, perhaps even checkmated. The last question is still whether McCain will attempt opposing the deal, which would be both self-contradictory and extremely risky.