hats off to the new york post for being basically one of the only newsgathering organizations that includes that these female 2 journalists, laura ling and euna leenabbed, who were nabbed by the north korean army and thrown into prison, work for al gore’s TV studio, current TV.
why didn’t al gore go to meet kim jong il? afraid? looks like bill clinton is still hard at work trying to rescue his badly worn image.
the glass steagall act passed during the depression era, tightly regulated the u.s. banking system. it stood the country in good stead for about 70 years –until bill clinton signed the bill in 1999 which repealed the glass steagall act.
the 1999 financial services modernization act, written by phil gramm, who had been advising john mccain up until this past july, was passed by both houses of congress and signed by bill clinton in the same year, the new law effectively repealed glass steagall and the bank holding act of 1956 which prohibited financial companies from owning banks and insurance companies.
glass steagall prohibited the merging of banks, securities firms, and insurance companies, while the financial services modernization act allowed for huge financial conglomerates.
both nancy pelosi and joe biden voted yes on repealling glass stegall on november 4, 1999 and bill clinton signed the bill into law one week later. barack obama was in the state senate at the time, so his hands are clean. and john mccain abstained from voting.
the gramm-leach-bliley act, also known as the financial services modernization act of 199, passed the senate 90-8 and the house 362-57 on november 4, 1999.
i will continue to post variations of this post every few days or at least every few weeks. it is important for people to know where the blame lies. and it is squarely on the shoulders of congressional members from the 90s and especially bill clinton.
over the weekend, both barack obama and john mccain sent themselves and each other up (as well as billary clinton) at a white tie affair in manhattan (see below).
peggy noonan of the wall street journal stepped up to give both mccain, and his much maligned running mate sarah palin, a backhanded compliment saying joe the plumber has done a better job of laying out the republican platform than the republican party.
the so-called joe factor. should not be overlooked. that mccain has been able to attach a visual image to barack obama’s taxation proposal has probably helped as well. reuters/cspan/zogby now show john mccain as being only 2.7 percentage points behind barack obama. which is a statistical tie. these numbers are reflected on gallup.com as well, for likely voters.
is this even possible? according to the ever reliable new york post, billary clinton are doing the bare minimum to get obama in the white house because mr. obama won’t guarantee that he’ll nominate hill to the supreme court. given that she has never served as a judge and failed the dc bar. what are the clintons thinking?
nancy pelosi took the time to bash george w. bush prior to the vote on the $700B wall street bailout plan that was before the u.s. house of representatives today. in the video linked to above, she rails against ‘no regulation, no supervision, no discipline,’ presumably of the u.s. banking system and not the iraq war.
but the reality is this, nancy pelosi voted to repeal the glass-steagall act in 1999, which regulated the u.s. banking system as a response to the financial fallout of the great depression. glass-steagall stood the country in good stead for over 70 years.
the move toward bank deregulation and less supervision in the 1990s is believed by many to be at the heart of this global financial crisis. pelosi’s beloved bill clinton, whom she praised in her ill-timed speech, signed the damn thing. click here to see how pelosi voted on the financial modernization act which is described in the summary of the bill as: ‘an act to enhance competition in the financial services industry by providing a prudential framework for the affiliation of banks, securities firms, and other financial service providers, and for other purposes.’ written by republican phil gramm, the bill got a lot of yeas. only a handful of democratic senators voted against it, including california’s barbara boxer and only one republican senator voted against it. while john mccain didn’t vote. joe biden voted yes. barack obama had the fortune of being in the illinois state senate at the time.
according to the financial times, during the presidential primaries, barack obama clearly laid the blame on the financial crisis that was unfolding on banking deregulation in the 1990s.
at the moment loads of people are fingering alan greenspan. but a lot of the press has failed to point the finger at the 1999 repeal of the glass-steagal act. according to pbs “in 1933, senator carter glass (D-Va.) and congressman he enry steagall (D-Ala.) introduce the historic legislation that bears their name, seeking to limit the conflicts of interest created when commercial banks are permitted to underwrite stocks or bonds.” it stood in good stead (albeit with a bit of tinkering) for 75 years until congress and bill clinton repealed it in 1999 following hundreds of millions of dollars worth of lobbying efforts by banks. under the gise of making the u.s. banking industry more competitive, the financial services modernization act passed by an overwhelmingly majority in congress and was signed by bill clinton.
is it any wonder that barack obama is struggling? the democratic party, on the national level has only crossed the 50% threshold 2 times since 1944. in 1992, bill clinton only got 43% of the vote. and in 1996, he took home but 49%.
these county by county maps of 1992 and 1996 show the voting patterns of the u.s., county by county, favors the republicans. the democrats dominate the cities while the republican party dominates the rural areas. unfortunately for the democrats, far more americans live in the burbs and countryside than live in the cities these days. the the bar graphs for 1996 show that the margin of difference between bob dole and clinton was ross perot, the third party candidate who peeled votes away from the republican party in 1992 as well.
billary clinton just won’t go away. bill clinton has just nabbed a prime-time speaking spot on day 3 of this year’s democratic national convention. he follows hillary who will speak on day 2. and more notably, speaks before whomever will ultimately be obama’s running mate (aka, vp). are the clintons relevant? will they cause obama problems over the next 90 days? is machavellian bill willing to fade to black like previous presidents (see richard nixon)? bill clinton makes george bush the elder look like the dali lama every time he opens his big mouth.
although the headline for the uk paper, the daily telegraph screams, ‘john mccain technology illiterate,’ they fail to explore the finer points of mccain’s decision to remain partially in a digital black hole. as mccain prefers to rely on the phone, just like george w. bush, so unlike bill clinton and richard nixon, there will be no paper trail when (or if) john mccain gets into and leaves the white house.
the clintons released their tax records just after april fool’s day. in the past 8 years since hillary rodham clinton became a senator and bill clinton a private citizen, the dynamic duo have earned a whopping $109 million. according to the new york times, all of their charitable donatioins have gone to the clinton foundations, the bulk of which as of the last return filed in 2006, has not been distriubted. according to the washington post many of the companies and individuals who have funded hillary’s presidential campaign have also provided bill clinton with hefty speaking fees.
one report states that obama’s passport information was accessed 3 times since january. another one says twice. either way, gotta wonder. is this the clintons or bush? or just a temp trying to satisfy curiousity.
so what’s hillary clinton’s campaign up to? well, tagging barack obama as a candidate only for one minority group while slowly slicing the others away. here’s how their doing in this time around. 1.) trot geraldine ferraro out and let her claim sexism is worse than racism and accuse the media of reverse racism 2.) edit 30 second loops out-of-context of a 2 hour sermon and then hand them around to the media 3.) get your friends at the wall street journal to write about it. 4.) trot bill clinton out to do the TV rounds to deny that he’s injected race into the whole campaign and so on and so on. then watch the white american vote get wedged from barack obama. that’s a bit whatdick morris thinks. and he ought to know, he used to work for the clintons. forgive the typos.
obama has swept the last 8 primaries and caucuses. he’s got the big mo and he’s hoping billary clinton will
get their alamo.
so the clintons are trying to go back to the playbook they pulled out in january as billary sought to win the new hampshire primary after a crushing defeat in iowa. basically, they are trying to say ‘boy, obama sure does give good speeches, but where are the details.’
there was a good article in the new york observer about 8 months ago with michael dukakis. remember him? well, he famously lost a 17 point lead to george bush the elder back in 1988. his campaign stump speech, much like billary’s, focused on how qualified and confident he was. in retrospect, he and a lot of dems realize the reason he lost, gore lost, and kerry lost –all against week republican candidates, is because they didn’t know how to give a really good stump speech and get people all riled up. they focused too much on details. which of course is important. but when you’re packing a stadium of 20K, like obama, don’t you want to give them something to take home and talk about?? and if you want the minute details you can go to barack obama’s website.
so let’s do the math. billary clinton has been in the senate for almost 8 years. as a senator, she earns $165K before taxes. if we multiply that by 7, well i just don’t get 5M. so where did the money come from? her book advance, which if i remember correctly was around 4M. but those numbers are always inflated and could’ve been more like 2M.but we all know that bill clinton earns between 200K and 300K giving speeches. but according to campaign finance law, he is only allowed to donate $2300 to his wife’s campaign. if i remember correctly, hillary and bill left the white house in 2001 with so many legal bills, they were effectively a step above poor white trash. sure does raise a lot of questions. and is also making some of hillary clinton’s donors nervous.
there are 4 definitions for the term billary in the urban dictionary. definition one states, ‘former presisdent and mrs. (senator) clinton. a famous marriage of convenience seen as a unit, though bill’s unit may be elsewhere.
the economist believes the long-term effect of bill clinton having taken over hillary rodham clinton’s campaign will most likely be damaging. “as she relies on her husband, she successfully undermines the most compelling arguments for her candidacy.” that she is a self-reliant, feminist pioneer. as borat might say, NOT.
thanks to the clintons, people from around the world are convinced the u.s. is the land of bigotry. an article in a highly respected german weekly news magazine highlights this.
bill clinton gave a heated response when questioned about the pending lawsuit in nevada that will prohibit people from caucusing on the sunset strip. in march 2006, most of the parties who have bought the suit, who have ties to hillary clinton, agreed to the DNC rules regarding caucusing in nevada.
this blog is about a bit of this and a bit of that. a sort of ‘for the moment’ blog. and at the moment, it’s more about politics and less about other stuff. my byline has appeared in wired, l.a. weekly, s.f. bay guardian and i blogged about the film ... Continue reading »
