Unseat all Republican incumbents in Congress.

Elect/re-elect all Democrats running for Congress.

Kick the congressional Democrats’ asses to give them spine!

Impeach Bush and Cheney!!

Indict Bush and Cheney for war crimes!!!    

An Obama-Biden presidency is a given, but be sure to vote for them  anyway.

That guy's letter is great, the only thing I can add is amen.

At this point Intrade is predisting Obama with 364 EV. This is not about getting Obama elected.

This is about delivering a landslide, destroying the Republicans' spirit, and forcing them to go out of power, and do some soul searching. A political party that is so deceptive and totally dismissive of the people they are elected to serve must take the lumps, pay the price, and take their medicine.

AZ Mod, it has already happened and it is just trickling down apon the taxpayer....

By Simon Duke
Last updated at 8:55 AM on 30th October 2008

Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.

The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.

Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.

The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out.

As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees.

News of the firm's largesse will revive the anger over the 'rewards for failure' culture endemic in the world of high finance.

The same bankers who have brought the global economy to its knees seem to pocketing the same kind of rewards they got during the boom years.

By Simon Duke
Last updated at 8:55 AM on 30th October 2008

U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs HQ which has set aside £7bn for bonuses and salaries this year

Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.

The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.

Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.

The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out.

As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees.

News of the firm's largesse will revive the anger over the 'rewards for failure' culture endemic in the world of high finance.

The same bankers who have brought the global economy to its knees seem to pocketing the same kind of rewards they got during the boom years.

Paulson's Swindle Revealed

By William Greider

October 30, 2008 "The Nation" -- The swindle of American taxpayers is proceeding more or less in broad daylight, as the unwitting voters are preoccupied with the national election. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson agreed to invest $125 billion in the nine largest banks, including $10 billion for Goldman Sachs, his old firm. But, if you look more closely at Paulson's transaction, the taxpayers were taken for a ride--a very expensive ride. They paid $125 billion for bank stock that a private investor could purchase for $62.5 billion. That means half of the public's money was a straight-out gift to Wall Street, for which taxpayers got nothing in return.

These are dynamite facts that demand immediate action to halt the bailout deal and correct its giveaway terms. Stop payment on the Treasury checks before the bankers can cash them. Open an immediate Congressional investigation into how Paulson and his staff determined such a sweetheart deal for leading players in the financial sector and for their own former employer. Paulson's bailout staff is heavily populated with Goldman Sachs veterans and individuals from other Wall Street firms. Yet we do not know whether these financiers have fully divested their own Wall Street holdings. Were they perhaps enriching themselves as they engineered this generous distribution of public wealth to embattled private banks and their shareholders?

Leo W. Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, raised these explosive questions in a stinging letter sent to Paulson this week. The union did what any private investor would do. Its finance experts vetted the terms of the bailout investment and calculated the real value of what Treasury bought with the public's money. In the case of Goldman Sachs, the analysis could conveniently rely on a comparable sale twenty days earlier. Billionaire Warren Buffett invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and bought the same types of securities--preferred stock and warrants to purchase common stock in the future. Only Buffett's preferred shares pay a 10 percent dividend, while the public gets only 5 percent. Dollar for dollar, Buffett "received at least seven and perhaps up to 14 times more warrants than Treasury did and his warrants have more favorable terms," Gerard pointed out.

"I am sure that someone at Treasury saw the terms of Buffett's investment," the union president wrote. "In fact, my suspicion is that you studied it pretty closely and knew exactly what you were doing. The 50-50 deal--50 percent invested and 50 percent as a gift--is quite consistent with the Republican version of spread-the-wealth-around philosophy."

The Steelworkers' close analysis was done by Ron W. Bloom, director of the union's corporate research and a Wall Street veteran himself who worked at Larzard Freres, the investment house. Bloom applied standard valuation techniques to establish the market price Buffett paid per share compared to Treasury's price. "The analysis is based on the assumption that Warren Buffett is an intelligent third party investor who paid no more for his investment than he had to," Bloom's report explained. "It also assumes that Gold Sachs' job is to protect its existing shareholders so that it extracted from Mr. Buffett the most that it could.... Further, it is assumed that Henry Paulson is likewise an intelligent man and that if he paid any more than Mr. Buffett--if he paid $1 for something for which Mr. Buffett would have paid 50 cents--that the difference is a gift from the taxpayers of the United States to the shareholders of Goldman Sachs."

The implications are staggering. Leo Gerard told Paulson: "If the result of our analysis is applied to the deals that you made at the other eight institutions--which on average most would view as being less well positioned than Goldman and therefore requiring an even greater rate of return--you paid a$125 billion for securities for which a disinterested party would have paid $62.5 billion. That means you gifted the other $62.5 billion to the shareholders of these nine institutions."

If the same rule of thumb is applied to Paulson's grand $700 billion bailout fund, Gerard said this will constitute a gift of $350 billion from the American taxpayers "to reward the institutions that have driven our nation and it now appears the whole world into its most serious economic crisis in 75 years."

Is anyone angry? Will anyone look into these very serious accusations? Congress is off campaigning. The financiers at Treasury probably assume any public outrage will be lost in the election returns. I hope they are mistaken.

About William Greider
National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and--due out in February from Rodale--Come Home, America.

Copyright © 2008 The Nation

Hispanic Woman,

I don't think the Democratic leaders in the House or Senate can grow a backbone.

Unlike the Republitards, who are 100% certain of the righteousness of their cause and fearless in its execution, liberals are thinkers, and arguers and debaters. Just as in 1964 they need to be lead to the right choice.

We tell them what to do. They follow the peeps.

If we are silent, they listen to the Georgetown Cocktail party, Heritage Foundation against America's Middle Class types of the right wingers.

Congratulations America!  You have earned a reprieve with your election of Obama. 

But be advised that the battle continues.  The Romans went through a downward slope over the centuries to the end of the “Roman World” with ever greater dolts such as Dubya, but there were reprieves when an leader such as Obama slowed or even reversed the descent into oblivion for a short reign.  We cannot afford to become complacent simply because we have an intelligent, and even more importantly, a wise leader now.  

The deteriorating bloodlines are simply skulking in the Bushes waiting to seize the seat of power for personal gain once again.  Beware my fellow Americans.

Let us get on with the war crimes investigation and indictments to serve warning to future Nero wannabes.  Maybe we cannot avoid the lifecycle that Rome and every other civilization has followed, but perhaps we can stretch out through tireless vigilance and effort. 

How wonderful AZ Mod has granted the US a reprieve in the name of the One. Why NObama's election is more than democracy in action it is salvation itself. Hallelujah! spread the rose petals in the path of our blessed leader.

Just a tiny question AZ Mod, where has the One demonstrated this wisdom you credit him with? Perhaps by his support for Blago? His alliances with Wright or Ayers? His profound success at using tax dollars to build a shady haven for drug dealers in Chicago public parks. Or maybe the $160 million of CAC funding he passed out with no incremental improvements in educational achievement? Oh I know, it's appointing an AG who sells pardons or a Secretary of State the One claimed had no relevant foriegn policy experience.

No need to worry just keep chanting the One's sacred name.