Mawkets!
Mawkets is wha bwings us togeveh today.
In which we break up the usual flow and lead in with this print media story, fresh and hot as the empanadas from the bakery down the street.
AP: Bank Lobbyists Had Big Role In Fallout
POSTED: 7:01 am EST December 1, 2008
WASHINGTON -- An Associated Press review of regulatory documents finds that the George W. Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed.
The review shows the government buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed and ignoring warnings that foretold the financial meltdown.
California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006 warning of foreclosures and other horror stories. She lost her job about a year later in the housing implosion.
The aggressive lobbying by banks included assurances that the now troubled mortgages were OK. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone.
The administration belief in market forces and reluctance to intervene has, ironically, ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.
...
Which was, of course, ushered in thanks to a previous Republican-led death-spiral-orgy of debt, leverage and speculation.
Which was, of course, followed by a massive Republican-led effort to heal the markets-gone-berserk by heroically doing absolutely nothing whatsoever as thousands of farms failed, thousands of factories closed and millions were tossed out of work.
Which has been, if you've been paying attention, precisely the let-it-all-burn-'cause-that'll-teach-'em "solution" to fire safety that certain Republicans have been flogging ever more hysterically over the last several weeks.
Republicans who were weaned on the Wingnut God’s vinegary teat to believe that Franklin Roosevelt was a monster and have firmly maintained ever since they grew into their Big Boy pants and vinyl-based hairpieces that what this country really needs to set things right is a Great Depression do-over.
Republicans like, say, George Will, who extends his tour as bishop of the Church Hooverism
(Founded by Saint Herbert, who suffered under Roosevelt, was crucified under Johnson, rose again under Reagan and became, under Dubya, a truly World Financial Church; One Free Market, global, holy and capitalistic) into a third, livid week on This Week….
Which, after letting Will get beat like a rented mule when the odds were even, opted to go back to their older format featuring Three Conservative and one Donna Brazile.
Or, if you prefer, Goldileft and the Three Boors
Conservative #1: Torie Clarke, who…
…has served as the press secretary to Senator John McCain and held positions on the staff of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. She subsequently moved to the Pentagon to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during President George W. Bush's first term in office, under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Clarke currently serves as the Senior Advisor of Communications and Government Relations for Comcast Corporation.
Clarke has been a close colleague of Mary Matalin since the Reagan administration.
Conservative #2: Matthew Dowd:
During the 2002 election, Dowd was a senior adviser to the Republican National Committee.
During the 2004 election, Dowd was chief strategist for George W. Bush's re-election campaign.
And Our Mr. Will as Conservative #3.
Clark: Just because things are on fire and Conservatives who believe in fucking up the government have been in charge of the fucked up Gummint, is no reason for more Gummint.
Dowd: I must agree with George Will. At a time when confidence in Gummint is at an all time low, proposing Gummint solutions is tricky.
Translation: At a time when Conservative incompetence, perfidy and malice has driven confidence in Gummint to an all time low, proposing Gummint solutions is tricksie.
Dowd also opined that if Barack Obama wants to prove to Conservatives that he loves America he needs to cut Democratic programs.
Oh how I do love it when Republicans get together and talk about unity and sacrifice and what Historic Victory Democrats need to give up and cut to because they need to prove to Epic Fail Facestabber Republicans that they’re Good Americans.
Will: It is possible that everything is fine. That it’ll all work out and the Evil Gummint shouldn’t do anything. Right now, most mortgages are being paid off. Most people are working. Go, Hoover, Go!
Translation: Mawkets that bwessed effect.
That dweem wiffin a dweem.
Looks like management finally read the hundreds of “Stop putting actual smart people and economists on the show that humiliate George Will” comment cards that George Will has been stuffing into the ABC suggestion box, because this week, instead of humiliating Will once again and to his face, Robert Kuttner had to rebut this drivel prospectively and from all the way across the dial on PBS’s “Now” (h/t Heather @ Crooks and Liars).
An hour later, the same snuffling nonsense showed up over on ”The Chris Matthews Show” (where we learn that the Republican Party is now apparently divided between the Bill Kristol wing and the “Rush Limbaugh wing”)
Katty Kay: People are scared. Even economists are scared, and they’re not even human: they’re 93% silicon, 12% metal filings, 15% guns and 20% butter!
driftglass: But that’s…140%?
Katty Kay: And you wonder why we’re in trouble?!
David Ignatius was honest enough to opine “The (Obama) honeymoon is a hurricane.” The Republican Party doesn’t know its ass from its eyeshades anymore. They have no idea who they are.
But Chris “All tactics/No principle” Matthews bulldozed on relentlessly, arguing that the crazy Left will fight anything that looks conciliatory, which will have the virtuous effect of giving Barack Obama the chance to push back and show the Wingtard Right that he’s not a…Democrat?
Or something.
Because only in the doodlefuck MSM terrarium does a razor-thin/stolen election on the Right equal an endorsement of the most radical, failed, Neocon policies…while an overwhelming mandate for Progressive Issues is merely a golden opportunity to sell those very issues out at remaindered prices to appease the opposition, who are the last defenders of a completely bankrupt political ideology.
Later, Matthews asks “Is Bush gonna hang around and do ex-President stuff after he’s gone?”
No. He’s an idiot.
Fuck no. He’s a fucking idiot.
Hahahaha! Oh God, we’re you serious?!
Matthews: Boy, you guys sure all talk big now that he’s leaving.
Once again proving that many a truth is spoken in jest.
Lastly, on “Fox News Sunday” Chris Wallace helpfully reminded Lindsey Graham that he sorta kinda said President Elect Barack Hussein Obama would suck and we’d all probably be smothered in our sleep by his Sekrit Muslim terrorist buddies.
Huh? Remember that? Huh? Huh?
Picture of Graham taking out a handkerchief the size of a mainsail and mopping his sopping brow from chakra one up, over and back down to his hand-puppet hole.
Then came the Very Stupidest Question So Far This Year…
Wallace: Are you satisfied that Bob Gates will follow Barack Obama’s orders?
Graham: The Surge was Awesome!
So Wallace then repeated the question again, slower -- “Is Bob Gates gonna listen to Barack Obama’s or is Barack Obama going to listen to Bob Gates?” – as if it actually made sense, but just hadn’t been heard correctly. Although I suppose this sort of zero-sum, “Who will be the footstool and who will wear the hobnail boots” thinking is the inevitable legacy of working for Rupert Murdoch.
Then came a commercial for an Exciting!New!Fox!Show! called “Secret Millionaire” (tag line, believe it or not: “Share The Wealth”) presumably because when the Evil Gummint helps poor people, it lacks the “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” entertainment value of a WalMart doorbuster pre-Christmas stampede and is therefore best left to the munificence of rich people on Fox reality teevee game shows.
Or, as Shakespeare put it (and I later abused it):
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods of Mawkets;
They kill us for their sport.”
After which Saxby Chambliss assured America that he trusts “the financial community” but not Wall Street.
Word has it Saxby Chambliss also always trusted Wayland Flowers
But was deeply suspicious Madam
11 comments:
Drifty, you do the best translations of Sunday-mornin'-speak!
That damn liberal media, keeping good conservatives down!
When you go all churchy wif yer analogies, it gets me hot. Jes' sayin.
Dumbfuckery- still standard on the Mouse Circus. I wonder how these imbeciles will be howling in a year when President Obama's policies prove to be a workable way to run the gummint?
I look forward to your Interpretations of the Sunday Mouse Circuit. I spend most of my Sundays in the Tabernacle of The Big Truck, where I offer prayers to Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, the Patron Saint of Fatass Truck Drivers.
Well, I see that Limbaugh has endorsed Hillary.
I was really worried about that.
I mean, just think how terrible it would be if, INSTEAD of Rush, she had gotten the endorsement of someone who purely hates progressives, and who has made a career out of ripping them, up one side and down the other.
I couldn't stand it if, INSTEAD of Rush, some rightwing asshat was expressing his delight at Obama's decision to put the State Department in the hands of someone who thinks that John McCain would make a better Commander-in-Chief than Obama, and who was among the staunchest of the democratic warpimps.
Jesus, it would have been unbearable if some peckerhead like Coulter had endorsed a SecState nominee who JUST LIKE JOE LIEBERMAN has the words:
"Property of AIPAC, INC.!"
tattooed on her ass.
End of snark.
What is somehow both hilarious and nauseating at the same time is reading Digby's convoluted thread trying to explain away this HUGE turd in the Hilbot punchbowl demonstrating just HOW much the rightwing nutcases love the idea of Hillary (and Bill...) running the state department.
And the dutiful little "Oh, Rush is irrelevant..." posts from the resident Clintonistas on Hullabaloo, who seemingly have yet to deal with the fact that it was the PROGRESSIVE community, NOT the conservatives, who, again, proudly doing Shermanesque duty, tore up the tracks in front of the Clinton "Triangulating Cannonball", and left it smoking on the rails. :o)
The fact that MoveOn.Org, AND the National Organization for Women both endorsed Obama, along with most other Progressive Groups, has yet to register with them.
And that brings us to the little minor glitch that I believe, to my marrow, is going to make Obama and most of the people reading this, rue the day that he brainfarted enough to put her up for SecState; which glitch is, she and her supporters don't REALLY, REALLY, believe, that she lost the nomination. They think that Obama just grabbed it when most of the democrats who are not commie-misogynists weren't looking, and ran off with it.
Now, Hillary and they, will get their chance to exercise a goodly chunk of the rightful power-inheritance that Obama so unfairly stole from her.
I don't think that she has it in her to be a team player, especially, on a team that is run by the politician who grabbed the God-ordained-control of the democratic party that was her birthright. And if anyone can show us some evidence that she will, then by all means, please post it.
(Pssst! Figuratively climbing into bed with george bush and his Koolaid-All-Stars to help sell the invasion of Iraq...
Later (when that had turned into the fucking-of-the-cluster that it was and is) assisting them to try to start a mid-east war with Iran...
Supporting Joe Lieberman against Ned Lamont in the Connecticut primary...
Openly speculating about the possiblity of political assassination as a reason for staying in the primary race...
Flacking for an amendment to make flag-burning a federal crime...
Kissing Rupert Murdoch's ass...
is, I submit, playing on the wrong team.
Obama owed her NOTHING, and she could not have hurt him, without consigning herself even further into political oblivion that her primary race tactics had already put her.
Now, this is major rehab. Will the Clinton's be grateful enough to toe the line for his foreign policy, which first and foremost includes keeping a low media profile?
I've got $20 bucks that says to anyone who wants it:
Are you fucking nuts?
Really Great topic.
I read SMCD religiously. Having long ago given up trying to extract the lesson of how much smarter than I the SMMC denizens were, I fled their church. (A recurring experience)
Still, I worried. These are highly regarded, oft-cited, finely-tuned instruments in "educating" the masses. Their "success" in guiding, molding, directing and shaping our public discourse is far more than we deserve. They consistently go to eleven! They know and expect themselves to be superior, but use their time to re-enforce that message with relish.
SOMEBODY needed to call bullshit on their sect. SOMEBODY had to call the tools on their words. SOMEBODY had to distill their squeezin's down to a shot-sized gulps, complete w/ face-contorting nasty taste and full-body tremors.
Your translations of this week's message should be required reading.
Should be mainstreamed, should provide you with a lucrative living.
Because when there's nothing to say, that REALLY doesn't need saying, there's the SMMC.
When their mouths are moving they're lying, schilling, excusing, puffing and fluffing our worst nightmares. From their compounds, bunkers and cocoons they provide their totally disconnected take on life to be lapped up by insiders and wannabees.
Their formulaic product's only redeeming quality is its consistency.
I don't know how or why you do it, but I thank you.
Ditto here, Tanbark and Rehctaw! (snarky)
And especially this one:
both hilarious and nauseating at the same time is reading Digby's convoluted thread trying to explain away this HUGE turd in the Hilbot punchbowl demonstrating just HOW much the rightwing nutcases love the idea of Hillary (and Bill...) running the state department.
I'm not even sure it's a mystery anymore. The economy is scheduled to tank (no, I'm not kidding, a whooooooooole lot more) in the next few weeks, and for some reason (protection?) he had to choose her (and the rest of the Bush-clones), he's been told by those in the know, or the damage would be even worse.
Hard to believe, but there are lots of secrets yet to be exposed about this RICO-deserving true elite. And most of them emanate from her AIPAC/Murdoch backers who couldn't win her "shoe-in" campaign for her for love or money, leaving me wondering about the depth of the Hillbots' affections. But I digress (as usual).
And Dg, you are the "funny" papers on Sunday.
You know, of course, that the following has never been the advertised hallowed reigning idea for them, only the best-ever plan/excuse with which to separate the fools from their monies.
The administration belief in market forces and reluctance to intervene has, ironically, ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.
And every one of those TV talking heads-up-their-asses have absolutely no qualifications whatever to be giving their opinions on anything (or to have ever held their past positions) other than being friends of friends of Cheney - no, Bush has no friends, remember?
And I'm not bitter that they've had the good jobs while the rest of us were un- or underemployed. Really. Just sorry for our country's next five to ten years of penance. I gotta move.
Suzan
Oh yes, one more bow a tu. I can't watch anymore, so thanks for the giggle. I needed that!
Picture of Graham taking out a handkerchief the size of a mainsail and mopping his sopping brow from chakra one up, over and back down to his hand-puppet hole.
_________
Suzan:
A big, slighty pot-bellied-from-gluttony, hug. :o) Thanks, TB.
You are veeeeerrrryyy welcome, TB!
But YOU are the one to thank. (And the irrepressible Dg.)
Love ya,
Suzan
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