(CNN) — Senate Democrats and the White House failed to find 60 votes to end debate on a $14 billion auto bailout bill and bring it to a vote Thursday night, killing the measure for the year.
The 52-35 vote followed the collapse of negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans seeking a compromise.
Tag Archives: AIG
We don’t know where the buck stops, but that’s okay, because there are no bucks left!
From Paul Krugman at The New York Times:
Everyone’s talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters’ minds, both discredited the G.O.P.’s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.
There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 — namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now.
Stand-Up Guys
Last night, John Shecky McCain and Barack Steverino Obama exchanged jokes at the 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner. The dinner is a charity event held by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and benefits needy children.
Original DVD cover.
You can find videos of the event all over the internets (and make sure to note the guy behind Captain Underpants who never stops eating 😆 , but just in case you can’t watch them, here are the funny portions of the routines. They both ended with fake nice stuff about each other.
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Filed under 2008 election, abortion, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Charles Schumer, Chimpy, Chris Matthews, Democrats, Fox News, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, humor, Joe Biden, John McCain, Media, Michael Bloomberg, movies, MSNBC, parody, politics, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Rupert Murdoch, snark, Wordpress Political Blogs
Oh Henry!
From Barron’s:
BABY, IT’S COLD OUT THERE. So let’s toss another billion on the fire.
What’s that make it? Well, let’s see: $29 billion for Bear Stearns, somewhere between $1 billion and $100 billion each for Fannie and Freddie (a nice narrow range), $85 billion for AIG, a couple of hundred billion to keep stray banks, brokers and their errant kin from asphyxiating themselves by swallowing toxic paper. And then there’s the proposed reincarnation of the Resolution Trust Corp., which all by itself may mean shelling out $800 billion, perhaps even as much as $1 trillion.
While we’re at it, we might as well include the $400 billion with which the Paulson-Bernanke grand plan envisages endowing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. so it can insure money-market funds.
But, please, understand those mind-boggling sums in no way, shape or form are to be construed as designed to aid and abet a bailout. Instead, they are merely the essential ingredients of an “intervention,” or, if you prefer, a “rescue” — just about anything, in other words, that’s semantically sweeter than bailout, with its ugly connotation of a sinking ship.
Filed under 2008 election, Chimpy, Congress, George W. Bush, humor, John McCain, movies, parody, politics, Republicans, snark, Wordpress Political Blogs
HYSTERICAL RAISINS 
