PHOTOBLOGGING

Historic church, now abandoned. Old Town, Manassas, VA.




















City Tavern Grille, Old Town, Manassas, VA

NO! NO! NO!

Dear Congresscritter:

I am writing to express my view of the latest version of the “rescue” bill. I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that some Government intervention is needed to restore liquidity to the financial system. But the operative word is “some,” meaning a limited intervention doing just the minimum to restore liquidity.

My reading of the news today suggests that the current version before the Senate does not meet that criteria. It will extend a number of renewable energy tax breaks for individuals and businesses; it will continue other expiring tax breaks, including the research and development credit for businesses and the credit that allows individuals to deduct state and local sales taxes on their federal returns. It will include relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax; and it will include a "Mental Health Parity" provision, requiring health insurance companies to cover mental illness as it would physical illness.

These elements are mere social engineering, irrelevant to the liquidity crisis. So I urge you to vote “No! Absolutely not!” Repeat that vote, again and again, until a clean bill addressing just the liquidity crisis is presented.

No bailouts. No. Never.

Respectfully,

HOGWASH

This morning Fox News and other outlets are reporting that the financial markets lost over a trillion dollars overnight.

Utter nonsense. To borrow a phrase from Mike Baker, "What a load of crap!"

The market didn't lose a damn dime. I did. You did. Anyone who has a pension, retirement savings account, mutual fund, or a few stocks and bonds did.

Memo to the media: report the facts.

ANSWER: DAMIFINO

QUESTION: WHAT DO I MAKE OF TODAY’S VOTE ON THE BAILOUT?

What I do know is that the Democrats voted for it 141-94; Republicans opposed it 66-132.

What I do know is that the Democrats have a majority in the House; they could have passed the bill 235-198 if they were willing to accept ownership of the result.

What I do know is that the majority party is insisting that the minority party is responsible for the bill not passing.

What I do know is that the American people strongly opposed the bailout. And anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the NO votes came from congresscritters from contested districts.

Given that, it seems to me that the bailout was wisely rejected.

Next question: which Presidential candidate will step up to the plate?

UH, HUH

From INSTAPUNDIT:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: "Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working."

Tell me something I don’t know ....

THOUGHTS ON THE BAILOUT

It appears that the outline, at least, of the bailout legislation has been mostly agreed to. Powerline has a side-by-side comparison of the final outline with both the Paulson and Democratic proposals here. I’ve looked at the comparison, and I tend to agree with Powerline: “House Republicans negotiated on behalf of the taxpayers; without their resistance to the original deal that the White House and Congressional Democrats signed off on, the bailout unquestionably would have been worse.”

The question is, did the Republicans succeed in improving the legislation? I don’t know. I think the conventional wisdom is correct – something needs to be done, and quickly – but it should be the minimum necessary to free up the credit markets. I’m not sure this is the minimum necessary.

McCAIN – 1; NYT – 0

The New York Times attempts to link the McCain campaign with Freddie Mac:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than to speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of his close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

The McCain campaign fires back:

The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations (emphasis mine) that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

The NYT is not an “actual news organization?” Imagine that.

RUSSIA FROM ALASKA?

Russia from Alaska: taken at 10:05 pm EDT, 27 September 2008.


The camera is here.


Another view taken at 10:29 pm EDT

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Angry Bear has a suggestion for funding the bailout.

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction.

After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson

Via the Volokh Conspiracy.

MORE ON THE BAILOUT

From Jim Lindgren at the Volokh Conspiracy:

I was mildly in favor of the bailout until I read Dodd's proposed statute. The way that the statute is drafted is so tricky and its definition of profit is so unsophisticated and nonsensical that the statute smells more of graft than of an honest attempt to solve the financial crisis. We are moving from failed "crony capitalism" to failed "crony community organizing."

Emphasis is mine. The text of the proposed statute is here.

WHO'S AT FAULT?

If this video is even roughly correct, and it passes my personal smell test, then Sen. McCain did the American taxpayer a great favor if he indeed did cause the bailout proposal to blow up in Congress's face.

MORON COLLIDER

The Brewster Rockit cartoon has been having a great deal of fun mocking the Large Hadron Collider, and today Tim Rickard (accidentally?) nailed Congress (I changed only three words).

Enjoy.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE NOTES

Obama did better than I expected, but I wasn’t initially impressed with either candidate. It seemed like they were trading sound bites.

During the early discussion of taxes, why didn’t McCain point out to Obama that corporations don’t pay taxes; that they’re simply a cost of doing business that is reflected in the prices we pay?

Obama kept harping on how much the war in Iraq cost, but never pressed the obvious point: that when he ended the war, the money could be refunded to the American taxpayers. He couldn’t; he needs the money to pay for his programs.

JOURNALISTIC HYSTERIA

In watching the pre-debate journalistic hysteria, I’m reminded of a comment by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal in his “Best of the Web” column of 15 September: “What's the difference between a journalist and a watchdog? Rabies.”

TWO SPACE SHUTTLES

This will be the last time we will ever see two space shuttles on launch pads simultaneously.


Atlantis is on Pad-39A (in the foreground) and is planned for launch no earlier than October 10 to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Endeavour is on Pad-39B (in the background) and will only be launch from Pad-39B if there is an emergency with Atlantis.

AfterAtlantis safely lands, Endeavour will move to Pad-39A to prepare for the next mission to the International Space Station no earlier than November 10.

Pad-39B will then be turned over to the new Constellation program to begin construction for the new Ares I crew launch vehicle.



And finally, we now know what is to be found at the end of the rainbow.

CAMPUS FOLLIES

Ann Althouse reports that the University of Illinois is telling all its employees they can't wear political buttons or attend political rallies on campus.

Faculty, at least, should be required to wear political buttons while on campus – makes it easier to find your targets. (Universities aren’t target-rich environments? – Daisy. Down, girl.)

Instapundit comments.

CARIBOU SARAH

Some posts back, I mentioned Jonah Goldberg's comment that Sarah Palin was born to kill caribou and kick butt. Well, here it is in picture form.

ELECTION MUDSLINGING

I just heard John Fund on Fox News say that "Americans are looking for less negative mudslinging."

Does that mean that we want more positive mudslinging?

How does one distinguish between positive mudslinging and negative mudslinging?

SUNDAY CATBLOGGING

Kiljoy, er, Kilroy (aka Shadow) is here.

FIRST TIME EVER

This is the first time we have ever put a state or national campaign sign in our front yard.

Returning from breakfast in Culpeper this morning, we counted campaign signs in peoples' yards: McCain - 10; Obama - 1.

No idea what - if anything - it means.

[UPDATE] Maybe this is the reason.