Jezebel: Bailout

Women And Children First? Sure, If You Give Me Time To Think About It

Sadie Stein — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:40:00 EST

New studies find that, when it comes to quick-sinking ships, chivalry is dead: or at least, all the women who couldn't make it onto the lifeboat were: More »

Did The Liberal Media "Interrogate" A Conservative Teen?

Anna North — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:20:00 EST

A seventeen-year-old girl named Jackie is the latest victim of the dreaded "liberal media bias," all because MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell dared to ask her about Sarah Palin's policies at a book signing on Wednesday. More »

Ted Kennedy Pitches, Christian Conservatives Recruiting More Catchers

Megan Carpentier — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy took time out from fixing the nation's health care system and recovering from brain cancer to throw out the first pitch of the season at Fenway Park yesterday. [Politico]

Obama's Rubber And Cheney's Glue

Megan Carpentier — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Barack Obama responded to Dick Cheney's criticism that Obama would cause the next terrorist attack by saying that, in fact, it was going to be Cheney's fault. [Politico]

Sarah Palin Thinks Ashley Judd Should STFU Already

Megan Carpentier — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:00:00 EST

President Obama's got a brand new stimulus plan that Republicans plan to mess up, Sarah Palin is steamed at Ashley Judd, and everyone - including me - wants everyone else to STFU already. More »

Prop 8 Challenge Moves Forward, Other People Screwed For Once

Megan Carpentier — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:30:00 EST

The California Supreme Court this afternoon granted a hearing to the Prop 8 opponents' challenge to the ballot measure that eliminated same sex marriage rights in the state. It did not, however, issue a stay that would have allowed same sex marriages to continue. [Equality California, California Supreme Court (pdf)]
Missouri finally finished counting its votes and has narrowly gone for McCain. Obama still gets to be President, though. [Politico]
A judge has ruled that Al Franken's campaign is entitled to written reasons why certain absentee ballots were rejected, which is expected to help his efforts to oust Norm Coleman. I'd bet the voters whose votes were rejected would like to know that sort of thing, too. [Politico]
But the Dow fell again, so we're all pretty well screwed for now no matter what. [Huffington Post]

A Weekend Of Talks For Obama, And Decisions For Clinton?

Megan Carpentier — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:30:00 EST

Officials are confirming that Hillary Clinton met with Barack Obama in Chicago to talk about a potential Cabinet slot. Two "senior Democratic officials" confirmed to the Huffington Post that Clinton was offered Secretary of State and asked for time to consider it, but she didn't admit to anything at a press conference in Albany. [NY Times, Huffington Post]
Barack Obama and John McCain are going to meet this weekend to talk about how they might be able to work together on something once Obama is President. It was arranged by Senator Lindsay Graham, McCain's Number One Fanboy. [Washington Post]
Vermont Senator Pat Leahy became the one who broke the seal, announcing today that he's not going to support Connecticut Senator Joe "Turncoat" Lieberman's efforts to hold onto his committee chairmanship in the Democratic-controlled Senate since Lieberman isn't a Democrat, campaigned against the incoming Democratic President and endorsed a Republican. Glad someone has more of a spine than Harry Reid. [Washington Post]
Speaking of backbones, thousands of people are expecting to protest the passage of Proposition 8 tomorrow, in California and around the country. [Huffington Post]

John McCain: Doing The Same Thing Over And Over And Expecting A Different Result

Megan Carpentier — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:30:00 EDT

McCain suggested he might suspend his campaign again so that he can really broker a bailout plan to save the country and be a hero... and we all know how well that worked out the last time. [The Nation]
An actuarial company has predicted that McCain has a 25 percent chance of dying in office his second term, which is why Sarah Palin is cracking jokes about Joe Biden's age and asked people whether they want "the new energy, the new face, the new ideas" in the White House in her new interview with Katie Couric. [MSNBC, Politico]
By the way, despite the fact that Republican leaders initially claimed it was Pelosi's partisan speech that caused Republicans to vote against the bailout plan — a stance mocked by no less than Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh — it turns out that it was actually Newt Gingrich's fault! He ginned up opposition to the bill to test the waters for a 2012 Presidential run before releasing a tepid statement of support while the Members he conned voted his will in the floor. Dick. [Huffington Post, Huffington Post, Politico, Huffington Post]
The Republican strategy to win in Ohio — as in Michigan before that — remains to disenfranchise new, poor and minority voters. For real. It's easier than winning based on your candidate or the issues, apparently. [MSNBC, Michigan Messenger]

Don't Let The Press Hurt Sarah Palin; Let Her Do It Herself

Megan Carpentier — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

If yesterday's parade of McCain surrogates defending Sarah Palin — in between blaming Barack Obama for the failure of the bailout plan that McCain insisted on coming to D.C. to personally negotiate for the sake of The Country! — didn't make it clear, the media is to blame for the massive suckitude of Ms. Palin. I mean, who do they think they are, asking her for her "positions" on things and then following up on her answers and — even worse! — reporting all of it to the public? They're mean! Mean! Don't they know that Palin is just supposed to be a pretty face and parrot the talking points McCain's staff gives her to help get him elected? Luckily, I have the even prettier face and definitely smarter brain in the form of Kay Steiger from Pushback to keep me from descending into "gotcha" journalism by questioning anything Palin ever says, ever. More »

The Drinking Will Start Early, But The Bailout Will Start Late, If At All

Megan Carpentier — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:30:00 EDT

That compromise bailout plan intended to save the economy? Yeah, it failed. [Washington Post]
The Dow proceeded to drop 778 points, the largest one-day loss in nearly 2 decades. Many people just kissed their asses and life savings goodbye. [Washington Post]
Republicans blame Nancy Pelosi for giving an offensive speech before the vote, which included partisan remarks like recognizing that Bush inherited surpluses and now the economy sucks. [Politico, Swampland]
Barney Frank responded to those criticisms thusly: "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decide to punish the country." Fucking crybabies. [Huffington Post]

No, John McCain, You Can't Really Win Just By Showing Up

Megan Carpentier — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:30:00 EDT

John McCain will be debating after all tonight in Mississippi, and I'll be live-blogging it at 9:00 ET to help you get through it. [Washington Post]
As the ad indicates, McCain started declaring victory in the debate right about the same time he decided to attend it. Talk about lowered expectations. [CNN]
Everyone from his former adviser Craig Shirley to his former opponent Mike Huckabee thinks McCain fucked this up. Ya think? [Huffington Post, CNN]
Aides to Sarah Palin are defying subpoenas issued in response to the troopergate probe of the Alaska governor; seven of them simply didn't appear in court today. Is anyone surprised?

John McCain Doesn't Need To Debate Or Help, He Just Needs To Be President

Megan Carpentier — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

John McCain may or may not debate Barack Obama tonight, but he will definitely continue giving press conferences, "not" campaigning and not be helpful in those bailout negotiations he helped scuttle yesterday. Yes, in the same way that his definition of maverick appears to be "someone that doesn't consider the consequences before making decisions," his definition of help appears to be "not talking to anyone until the end when he can do the most damage to delicate negotiations." Spencer Ackerman and I think that's kind of bullshit, so we puzzle through GOP blow jobs, pooch-screwing, what combination of booze I shouldn't have consumed last night and whether gay Yankees fans shout "suck my cock" during a karaoke rendition of "Sweet Caroline" because they are gay or because they are simply Yankees fans. More »

Here He Comes To Save The Day (He's Only A Little Late)!

Megan Carpentier — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Congressional lawmakers came to terms on the bailout package today, several hours before John McCain got done giving his Clinton Global Initiative speech and arrived on the Hill to rescue the American economy. [NY Times]
That doesn't mean he's going to be at the debate tomorrow, of course. There might be something else he could rescue for the good of the nation instead of sucking it up and debating Obama, he's sure. [NY Times]
Mississippi's Republican governor, Haley Barbour, says they're all systems go for a debate. Obama plans to have a townhall meeting without McCain if McCain is too much of a coward to debate him. [CNN, Huffington Post]
By the way, McCain's "suspension" saved his campaign $1 million in ads and generated a shitload of earned media. It also didn't stop him from campaigning. [Huffington Post, Huffington Post]

Ann Coulter, whose casual racism has gotten...

Megan Carpentier — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:20:00 EDT

Ann Coulter, whose casual racism has gotten her in hot water before, is back in full-throated form blaming the current financial crisis on minorities. In a column titled "The Gave Your Mortgage To A Less-Qualified Minority" Ann writes of Clinton-era laws designed to encourage recalcitrant banks to lend to minorities at rates concomitant with their credit reports that "banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named 'Caylee.'" People actually pay her for this shit, people. It's good to know that she knows how to bring Americans together during a crisis. [National Review, Ann Coulter] More »

John McCain Walks Away From Debates, His Pride, And America Itself

Megan Carpentier — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Yesterday, John McCain announced a temporary end to partisan politicking and asked Barack Obama to join him in holding hands, singing "Kumbaya" and postponing the Presidential debates until Congressional intervention ends the financial crisis, which most economists agree will be some time next year at the earliest. Who needs to know where candidates stand, anyway? There's a crisis people! Luckily, Spencer Ackerman and I are able to stop laughing at the thought that McCain is doing this for any reasons other than partisan politics and his fear of debating Barack Obama — just long enough to get through a conversation about the "strategy" behind the decision, partner-swapping, Bill Kristol's masturbatory epistles to the GOP and what McCain is doing instead of praying for a terrorist attack to save his campaign. More »

John McCain Wants To Be A Senator Again (Albeit Briefly)

Megan Carpentier — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:40:00 EDT

John McCain announced this afternoon that he is suspending his campaigning and postponing Friday's debate to head back to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. Basically, he's decided that it's more important for him to come back to D.C. to weigh in on a legislative issue on which he has little expertise than to talk directly to Americans about why they should vote for him in less than 6 weeks because politics should take a back seat right now. There's nothing political about that, nope! [Washington Post]
By the way, John McCain's the most absent Senator of the 110th Congress, having missed 64 percent of the votes since January 2007 (more than Obama or Tim Johnson, who had a stroke). He missed voting on a number of pieces of Iraq legislation, the GI Bill, Medicare reform, the economic stimulus package, bills on the house crisis, FISA and the Lebetter pay equity act, among others. But, this, yo, this is some important shit right here. And it's just a coincidence that he tanked in the polls this week. [Washington Post, Think Progress, Huffington Post, The Health Care Blog, AmericaBlog, Tuscon Citizen, Writes Like She Talks]

Wanda Sykes Campaigns For Cabinet Position On Last Night's Leno

Megan Carpentier — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:00:00 EDT

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Wanda Sykes was on The Tonight Show last night and gave the most cogent rebuttal to the bailout of any public figure to date: the Bush Administration wants poor people to close their eyes and give rich people $700 billion to squander so they can keep their Olympic-sized swimming pools. Only she says it funnier, obviously. Wanda Sykes for Treasury Secretary! More »

We Ain't Gonna Take It, And Paulson And Bernanke Ain't Gonna Get It

Megan Carpentier — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:30:08 EDT

Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke were on the Hill today, metaphorical hats in hands, asking for gobs of money and the ability to spend it with no oversight. Unlike what Sarah Palin actually said about the Bridge To Nowhere, Congress told them, "No thanks." [Washington Post]
Dick Cheney tried his hand at asking nicely, but House Republicans, knowing Cheney well, told him to go fuck himself. A couple of them then fist-bumped Pat Leahy on the way out of the meeting. [Politico]
Ahmadinejad doesn't care who we elect because he plans to keep building his nukes regardless. [CNN]
The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for a Georgia man convicted of killing a police office on the sole basis of eyewitness testimony since recanted. Scalia, Alito and Roberts must have taken a really long lunch today. [CNN]

John McCain Can Pry Obama's Health Care Reform From My Cold Dead Hands

Megan Carpentier — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:30:37 EDT

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Good news first: Obama is up in the polls in Pennsylvania and Iowa and tied in Minnesota and Nevada. Also, most people blame Republicans for the current economy crisis. Unfortunately, he's pulling staff from North Dakota, Georgia, Idaho and Alaska. That can't be good. [CNN, CNN, CNN]
A new poll shows that, since putting Palin on the ticket, McCain now polls evenly with Obama on the question of who understands women and what's important to us. Obama used to have a 34 point lead. [Politico]
Obama's got a new ad in which he (rightly) accused McCain's health care plan of being a massive program of deregulation, sort of like how McCain used to love the deregulation of financial markets, too. That the kind of change even an NRA member might fear more than an ammo tax these days. [Huffington Post]

Attackerman Returns To America, Wonders What Happened To All Our Money

Megan Carpentier — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Spencer Ackerman is back from his Washington Independent Afghanistan excursion safe and sound, only to wonder what the hell happened to all his money (and everyone's else's) while he was gone. We parse the news and the inevitable legislation and try and figure out whether the Democrats will roll over for Bush again on giving him unconstitutional authority to fuck shit up. Then we move on to the Associated Press poll that claims Obama is losing votes by not being white and how the McCain campaign has bowed to the bigotry of lowered expectations and insisted that Sarah Palin isn't up to a big-boy VP debates. But she's totally ready to lead! More »

It's One Of Those Days For Everyone, Random Wall Street Guy

Megan Carpentier — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:30:27 EDT

The Dow lost about another 450 points today even though the federal government has decided to buy out (read: nationalize) anything they need to to keep out economy from collapsing. [Washington Post]
Speaking of, Morgan Stanley might merge with Wachovia, which would make Goldman Sachs the only remaining stand-alone investment bank in the United States. Seriously. [NY Times]
Hey, look! Something shiny! Don't watch the end of capitalism! Lori Drew is moving her family to an undisclosed location. [St. Charles Journal]