After last week’s debacle, where Obama call John McCain to try to come out with a joint statement, and McCain blew him off long enough to try and take the idea as his own thunder, we should have seen that the MCCain camp is fresh out of ideas that don’t involve negative politicking and as such shouldn’t have been shocked to hear McCain parrot Obama’s suggestion to increase the amount guaranteed by the FDIC from $100,000 to $250,000. For those who didn’t catch the statement by Obama this morning, Barack proposed raising the cap as a way to protect more of the life savings many Americans currently have in US banks. This is the statement that was posted on his site this AM at 7:51 EST.

Yesterday, within the course of a few hours, the failure to pass the economic rescue plan in Washington led to the single largest decline of the stock market in two decades.

While I, like others, am outraged that the reign of irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has created the current crisis, I also know that continued inaction in the face of the gathering storm in our financial markets would be catastrophic for our economy and our families.

At this moment, when the jobs, retirement savings, and economic security of all Americans hang in the balance, it is imperative that all of us – Democrats and Republicans alike – come together to meet this crisis.

The bill rejected yesterday was a marked improvement over the original blank check proposed by the Bush Administration. It included restraints on CEO pay, protections for homeowners, strict oversight as to how the money is spent, and an assurance that taxpayers will recover their money once the economy recovers. Given the progress we have made, I believe we are unlikely to succeed if we start from scratch or reopen negotiations about the core elements of the agreement. But in order to pass this plan, we must do more.

One step we could take to potentially broaden support for the legislation and shore up our economy would be to expand federal deposit insurance for families and small businesses across America who have invested their money in our banks.

The majority of American families should rest assured that the deposits they have in our banks are safe. Thanks to measures put in place during the Great Depression, deposits of up to $100,000 are guaranteed by the federal government.

While that guarantee is more than adequate for most families, it is insufficient for many small businesses that maintain bank accounts to meet their payroll, buy their supplies, and invest in expanding and creating jobs. The current insurance limit of $100,000 was set 28 years ago and has not been adjusted for inflation.

That is why today, I am proposing that we also raise the FDIC limit to $250,000 as part of the economic rescue package – a step that would boost small businesses, make our banking system more secure, and help restore public confidence in our financial system.

I will be talking to leaders and members of Congress later today to offer this idea and urge them to act without delay to pass a rescue plan.

Shortly thereafter, at 8:20 AM EST, McCain appeared on CNN with that exact same suggestion. Coincidence, I doubt it. When in trouble, co-opt you opponents ideas and pretend they’re yours..

John McCain stunningly came out last week stating that he was halting his campaign to go back to Washington to help resolve our current financial crisis. He was in fact so dedicated to this cause that he suspended his campaign and initially said he would be too busy saving the country to join in the Presidential Debate last Friday. He, of course, managed to sneak away from the crisis long enough to join the debate, and then somehow must have solved the Problem because he was right back to campaigning Monday, criticizing Obama for his supposed inaction. Obama for his part, kept out of the kitchen, apparently having been taught by someone what too many cooks can do to a dinner, made phone calls, and worked his side of the aisle. And come Monday, when the measure came up for a vote, Democrats came through with their votes, while the Republicans chose any reason they could find to justify their voting against the measure. What does this mean? it means that Even though McCain was apparently boots-down in D.C., herding this bill to it’s adoption, his party members decided they preferred a different route, they preferred to make a point, stand their principled ground, defy Nancy Pelosi, irregardless of the effect of their actions on the economy, on Wall Street, and more importantly, on Main Street. If this is the type of statesmanship that McCain will bring to the Oval Office, grandstanding, theatrics, and rash actions, then maybe more people should think about what they want for themselves, for their children, for their future, and for their savings and investments. Maybe a serious and grave crisis requires introspection, requires measured thought, requires the counsel of expterts, and not the cessation (short as it was) of a campaign. Especially when that gambit not only didn’t work, but failed miserably. And now that the gambit did not work, McCain is managing to step back from his savior role, and pretending that he never had the intention of going to DC and fixing the world as he so bravely did just a few days ago.

Wow. Asking candidates to clarify their position is now “Gotcha Journalism” being asked what your position by one of those people who are sopposed to make up their mind about voting for you is not playing fair. Palin needs to be so protected that McCain has to answer her questions for her. When Palin very clearly says something that completely contradicts McCain’s positions, and does so with apparent thought and specific detail, it’s the fault of the media for hearing her correctly. I’m waiting for criminals to start using the McCain-Palin defence in court. It’s not fair to ask me what I did when it clearly not what I said I intended to do.

As Bill Clinton used for his campaign, “It’s the economy, Stupid.” Ans somehow, the republicans still don’t get it. During a time when the economy is under massive pressure, at a time when Americans face losing their houses, their jobs, and their hope, the Republicans are still busy playing games and protecting their friends. The have chosen to vote in a way that protects their short-term financial and political interests while destroying the long-term stability and viability of this nation. Are y’all out of your minds. As I type, the DOW is down about 650 points, and earnings reports won’t start tricking in until the end of the week. When THOSE reports come in, the Dow is really going to take a hit, bailout or no bailout. I’m sure glad that the “Maverick” McCain was able to ge in there and use his forecefull personality to convince his party to save the country.

Saturday night, while on a stop for cheesesteaks in South Philadelphia, Palin was questionedby a Temple graduate student about whether the U.S. should cross the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

While waiting in line with her daughter Willow to place her order, a
reporter asked Palin if she watched Friday’s debate, and what her
impressions were.

“I did, I did,” she said. “McCain did awesome. He was great. He was absolutely on his game.”

Palin added that she is ready to debate Joe Biden next Thursday in St. Louis.

“I am,” she said. “Look forward to it. Look forward to getting to speak to Americans through that debate, absolutely.”

The governor got a more serious interrogation moments later when
Temple graduate student Michael Rovito approached her to inquire about
Pakistan.

“How about the Pakistan situation?,” asked Rovito, who said he was not a Palin supporter. “What’s your thoughts about that?”

“In Pakistan?,” she asked, looking surprised.

“What’s going on over there, like Waziristan?”

“It’s working with [Pakistani president] Zardari to make sure that
we’re all working together to stop the guys from coming in over the
border,” she told him. “And we’ll go from there.”

Rovito wasn’t finished. “Waziristan is blowing up!,” he said.

“Yeah it is,” Palin said, “and the economy there is blowing up too.”

“So we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan you think?,” Rovito asked.

“If that’s what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any
further in, absolutely, we should,” Palin responded, before moving on
to greet other voters.

Those comments appear to contradict McCain’s long-standing position
of negotiating with Pakistan before carrying out attacks on terrorists
within their borders. The GOP nominee criticized Barack Obama in Friday
night’s debate for his willingness to strike unilaterally inside
Pakistan.

“He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan,”
McCain said. “You don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you
have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the
Pakistani government.”

Obama responded saying, “Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan. If
the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our
sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take
them out.”

Palin ordered the two sandwiches, but the managers refused to let
her pay, so she slipped a bill into their tip jar. She did not eat at
the restaurant, opting instead to take the food with her in the
motorcade.

From Wikipedia.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement police or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (states, their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate states.

The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the United States National GuardConstitution or Congress.

under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the

From Army Times:

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the
day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of
Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or
manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
…

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control
or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive
poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Training
for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes
specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to
extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a
CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how
to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The
1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal
package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger
Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and
nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals
without killing them.

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal
capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in
Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated
and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking
we were the first to get it.”

The package includes equipment to
stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or
controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

Anyone else a touch concerned??

Lawmakers have reached agreement on a bipartisan counterproposal to the
Bush administration’s $700 billion financial bailout plan.

“We’ve reached a fundamental agreement on a set of principles, one, for taxpayers, which is tremendously important,” Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn

Americans
should “legitimately feel better about the overall approach,” said Rep.
Barney Frank, D-Mass., who heads the House Financial Services Committee.

Taxpayers
will be protected under the Congressional version of the bailout, said
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., the top Republican on the House Financial
Services Committee

Geez. No words from McCain of how he wrote it singlehandedly on the back of a paper napkin while furiously running down main street in his dash back to Washington? I don’t even see him in the photo?

So. McCain is now proposing that the debates for Friday be pushed to next week, current crisis notwithstanding, since we all know the U.S. economy will be fixed by October 2nd (Remember, he wants to cancel the Friday debate until the crisis is resolved). Of course to move the debate until then would mean postponing, or cancelling the Biden/Palin debate. Not to be cynical, but isn’t that he would love to cancel or push until after the General Election anyways? He knows that Sarah Palin is no match for the long winded nature of Joe Biden and he most certainly would love to see that debate never happen. I warned of this yesterday when he initially tried to take his ball and go home on the presidential debate scheduled for Friday. I guess when the debate’s focus is likely to shift to something other than, I’m a good foreign relations person because I was a POW, it’s not as much as an advantage as you thought it would be.
  Now as Letterman pointed out last night, If Sarah Palin is supposed to be your V.P., and is supposed to be able to run the country in the case of you being incapacitated for any reason, ill health, surgery, untimely death, sniffles, whatever, then shouldn’t she be able to do the same thing now, for a campaign? It’s not like running a country, it should be a heck of a lot easier for an executive of her caliber who has so much more experience running things than some non-executive like Obama… She should be able to run Obama in the ground with all her ability. SUrely she can run the Campaign in McCain’s stead can’t she? If Palin can’t be relied on to run a CAMPAIGN for president, how can she run our country?

From CNN:

Less than an hour after Barack Obama’s team told reporters that John McCain’s Wednesday announcement that he would be suspending his campaign came after the Democratic nominee suggested a joint statement from both candidates on the financial crisis, the McCain camp issued its own account of talks between the two men.

"Senator Obama phoned Senator McCain at 8:30 am this morning but did not reach him," the campaign said in a memo sent to reporters. "The topic of Senator Obama’s call to Senator McCain was never discussed.

"Senator McCain was meeting with economic advisers and talking to leaders in Congress throughout the day prior to calling Senator Obama. At 2:30 pm, Senator McCain phoned Senator Obama and expressed deep concern that the plan on the table would not pass as it currently stands. He asked Senator Obama to join him in returning to Washington to lead a bipartisan effort to solve this problem."

Minutes after McCain’s Wednesday statement, Obama’s campaign said that the Democratic nominee had called McCain earlier that morning to ask him if he would be willing to issue a joint statement on the economy and "urg[e] Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal." They also said that McCain returned the call at 2:30 Wednesday afternoon and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement, and that the two campaigns are currently "working together on the details." McCain’s announcement came shortly before 3 p.m. ET.

So..McCain got a call from Obama in the A.M., but even though it wasn’t the magic 3AM call, McCain still wasn’t around to acknowledge it. Supposedly. I’m more inclined to believe that they did talk, but McCain just got good and GOP-reedy for credit for the idea. Adding on that he wants to avoid the debates at any cost, and this clears the way to excuse  Sarah from having to debate Joe as well. After all, after Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan felt her up, she probably wants to take a calgon bath anyways.

Now, on to the big news. Here are my suggested modifications to the economic bailout bill.

1. Any company that accepts the bailout has to cap their executive salaries at 2.5 Mil (or 10x the President’s salary) for the duration before the amount is repaid.
2. All executive termination compensation agreements are changed to no greater than 6 months (at the 2.5 mil) in salary, 6 months medical,  and a no-compete in the same sector for 3 months.
3. Any company that allows their execs to bail before accepting the assistance, would have to divert the amount of the golden parachute package off the top of the bailout as a 100% repayable portion at %10 interest to be paid before any profit can be realized to shareholders.
4. All packages include the govt becoming a percentage partner commensurate with the percentage of the aid in proportion to the company’s net worth on the day of accepting the loan until such a time as the company repays the loan at a  interest rate twice the prime rate on the day of acceptance.
5. Shareholders cannot be paid at a percentage of net profits greater than the percentage amount of the aid initially provided as calculated in the previous point.

Give me those five points and I think I *might* go along with it.

from http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/palins-revelations-repent-the-end-is-near/

Rev. Howard Bess:

Palin now denies that she wanted to censor library books, but Bess insists that his book was on a “hit list” targeted by Palin. “I’m as certain of that as I am that I’m sitting here. This is a small town, we all know each other. People in city government have confirmed to me what Sarah was trying to do.”

[He] says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. “She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board,” said Munger, a music composer and teacher. “I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, ‘Sarah, how can you believe in creationism — your father’s a science teacher.’ And she said, ‘We don’t have to agree on everything.’

“I pushed her on the earth’s creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she’d seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them.”

Munger also asked Palin if she truly believed in the End of Days, the doomsday scenario when the Messiah will return. “She looked in my eyes and said, ‘Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime.’”

Sarah Palin ABC Interview With Charlie Gibson Part 1

GIBSON: But this is not just reforming a government.
This is also running a government on the huge international stage in a
very dangerous world. When I asked John McCain about your national
security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the
Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those
sufficient credentials?

PALIN: But it is about reform of government and it’s about putting
government back on the side of the people, and that has much to do with
foreign policy and national security issues Let me speak specifically
about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s
with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years
as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the
U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the
Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas
development in our state to produce more for the United States.

GIBSON: I know. I’m just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.

PALIN: It is, but I want you to not lose sight of the
fact that energy is a foundation of national security. It’s that
important. It’s that significant.

…

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN:  In what respect, Charlie? (no clue what the Bush Doctrine is)

GIBSON: The Bush — well, what do you — what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view. (Hopeful)

GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.