Saturday, August 30, 2008

U.S. Government Rants, Raves, and Election

"If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions." --Thomas Jefferson
You must register by October 7 to vote in November's Elections.

61 comments:

Anonymous said...

Palin is hot. Do all women look like her in Alaska and do the things she does (hunt, fish, etc.)? If so, "Off, to Alaska!"

Anonymous said...

I read an interesting clip about how the white house is using this "Georgia-Russia" situation as a means of getting war veteran McCain into the white house. Sorry, I am unable to produce the source or location of this article. It went on to say that Bush and co. is going to keep the sabre-rattling going in hopes of making McCain a more viable choice in a time of a new "Cold War."

Anonymous said...

"US Workers are Worse Off"

This Labor Day finds workers in worse shape than they've been in years, according to a scorecard released Monday by Rutgers University. Primarily using data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the "Rutgers Report Card" found that:

more than 10 percent of Americans are unemployed, discouraged from seeking work or underemployed. That is a nearly 25 percent increase from one year earlier.

about 530,000 were subject to mass layoffs in the last year, growth of nearly 5 percent but a lower rate than five and 10 years ago.

the median weekly earnings for American workers have not grown in real terms over the past eight years.

at $6.55, the federal minimum wage is worth 40 cents less per hour, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was a decade ago.

although employer-assisted child care and employee wellness programs have grown quickly over the past decade, they still cover less than one quarter of American workers.

roughly 4 percent of the work force wants to work full-time but is working part time because they can't find full-time work.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department said last week that the number of people signing up for jobless benefits declined for the third straight period but remained above 400,000, an indicator of a slowing economy.


Are these facts/numbers indicative of the current administration's plan and will this plan continue to be carried out by McCain if elected? Will Obama continue this plan if elected?

Anonymous said...

GOP politics continue at the RNC inside and out?

Inside: Many are claiming that the nomination process during the hour-and-a-half voting procedure was riddled with tainted numbers.

Convention Secretary Jean Inman recorded each state's votes. Even though several states cast a portion of their votes for Ron Paul (among them Alaska, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia), none of those votes were repeated aloud by the secretary, and therefore they were not confirmed by the chair.

The result of the roll call vote before it was made unanimous by acclamation recorded five votes for Paul, while a news reporter counted at least 15.

Ron Paul's delegate manager stated, "There were several discrepancies,...The RNC was roughshod, a little careless. They weren't as respectful as they could have been. I don't think that's very professional, and it's not a good reflection. They had five ladies keeping the score, plus the chairman, so they had six people and still couldn't get the numbers right."

Outside: CNN reports that police arrested an estimated 200 anti-war protesters Thursday night after using tear gas and percussion grenades to disperse a crowd near the State Capitol, about a mile from the Republican National Convention.

Additionally, there was a street-by-street chase and a large number of people wound up on the ground with their hands behind heads

Bad data and force is the combination that (mis)led us to a war in Iraq. Is this bad combination going to continue under another republican white house?

Verity Quest said...

In reference to GOP's post:

Ron Paul - New Party? Or just an Announcement of Support?

The following letter was released today from Dr. Ron Paul's Communication Manager Jesse Benton:

Friends,

Dr. Paul just authorized me to send this press release to the national wire. Stay tuned!


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Jesse Benton
September 5, 2008

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA – On the heels of his historic three-day rally in Minneapolis that drew over 12,000 attendees, Congressman Ron Paul will make a major announcement next week in Washington at the National Press Club.

More details will be announced Monday.


Paul supporters are hoping he runs for President under a new party while others are speculating he will announce who he supports for President.

Anonymous said...

About McCain's VP choice Palin:

She’s against abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

She supports teaching creationism in schools.

She denies global warming and opposed listing polar bears as an endangered species because it might prevent off-shore drilling.

Speaking of drilling, she supports drilling in ANWR.

Is Palin in big oil’s pocket?

Anonymous said...

Is Sarah demented or sly?

I've turned anti-republican for 2008 after reading the AP article on Palin's ways of motivating the people of Alaska.

Concisely, she told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God."

In an address last June, she urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."

As silver and gold was to the age of mercantilism, so to is oil and gas to republicanism (in the party sense of the word).

Does she have a direct line to God to know "God's will?" Why didn't God tell her there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Anonymous said...

Here is the address of the AP article I mentioned above.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin_iraq_war

Anonymous said...

Did Sarah Palin have an affair? Article from the Associated Press:

McCain campaign calls Palin affair 'vicious lie.'

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — John McCain's campaign is denying a tabloid report that vice president candidate Sarah Palin had an extramarital affair. "It's a vicious lie," spokesman Steve Schmidt said.

The campaign is considering legal action, the senior adviser added.

The National Enquirer wrote in its edition dated Sept. 15 that Palin had an affair with a business associate of her husband, Todd Palin. He discovered the infidelity and dissolved the business, the article said. It attributed the allegation only to "an enemy" of the Alaska governor.

"The smearing of the Palin family must end," Schmidt said in a statement released Wednesday. "The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Gov. Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false."


My comments: The Enquirer was correct with the Edwards affair.

Anonymous said...

McCain still "Connected."

The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB).

In his current bid for president, McCain has accepted financial contributions from individuals at a law firm founded by Charles H. Keating, Jr., who symbolized how political influence contributed to the collapse of savings and loans in the 1980s, have bundled at least $50,000 to John McCain's presidential campaign since June, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has calculated, making the Cincinnati-based firm McCain's sixth-largest contributor during that period.

McCain was among "The Keating Five," a group of senators who benefited from more than $1 million in campaign contributions connected to Keating and personally intervened with government regulators to allow his S&L to make risky investments that ultimately defrauded thousands of investors and cost taxpayers $3.4 billion.

Verity Quest said...

Dr. Ron Paul (R) Representative from Texas endorses....neither Obama nor McCain.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas called on voters to back a third-party candidate for president Wednesday, rejecting his party's nominee and offering equally harsh words for the Democratic candidate.

full article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/10/paul.endorsement/?iref=mpstoryview

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAM84uXBd5k...iderednews.com/

This video (site above) of civilians killed in Nawabad was filmed by a doctor on his mobile phone. It has been edited to remove the most graphic footage of the dead.

To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: More than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.

An Afghan woman and her daughter, in Azizabad a day after the Aug. 22 airstrike, mourned the death of a relative. The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a U.N. investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.

The US maintains only 7 people were killed..

http://www.spiderednews.com/Afghanistan.htm?vid=536468

Anonymous said...

Is South America the next "Blood-for-oil" war (not that blood for hasn't already been spilled there)?

September 11th 2008, by Jose Orozco and Matthew Walter - Bloomberg http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3789


-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the U.S. ambassador to leave within 72 hours, in a show of support for Bolivian President Evo Morales, who also expelled the top U.S. diplomat from his country.

Chavez recalled his ambassador to the U.S. and said he won't send another envoy to Washington until after the U.S. presidential elections in November. Both Chavez and Morales have accused the U.S. of backing opposition movements in their countries.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSmWVCRJWOw&feature=related

While watching this video, this lady does not impress me to be a world leader. This Palin lady is very unconfident and scares the crap out of me that, if McCain is elected, she is one step away from running this country.

Anonymous said...

Here is a lovely Op-Ed pulled from the New York Times, written by Paul Krugman.

Blizzard Of Lies

Did you hear about how Barack Obama wants to have sex education in kindergarten, and called Sarah Palin a pig? Did you hear about how Ms. Palin told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” when it wanted to buy Alaska a Bridge to Nowhere?

These stories have two things in common: they’re all claims recently made by the McCain campaign — and they’re all out-and-out lies.

Dishonesty is nothing new in politics. I spent much of 2000 — my first year at The Times — trying to alert readers to the blatant dishonesty of the Bush campaign’s claims about taxes, spending and Social Security.

But I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention. The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.

Take the case of the Bridge to Nowhere, which supposedly gives Ms. Palin credentials as a reformer. Well, when campaigning for governor, Ms. Palin didn’t say “no thanks” — she was all for the bridge, even though it had already become a national scandal, insisting that she would “not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative.”

Oh, and when she finally did decide to cancel the project, she didn’t righteously reject a handout from Washington: she accepted the handout, but spent it on something else. You see, long before she decided to cancel the bridge, Congress had told Alaska that it could keep the federal money originally earmarked for that project and use it elsewhere.

So the whole story of Ms. Palin’s alleged heroic stand against wasteful spending is fiction.

Or take the story of Mr. Obama’s alleged advocacy of kindergarten sex-ed. In reality, he supported legislation calling for “age and developmentally appropriate education”; in the case of young children, that would have meant guidance to help them avoid sexual predators.

And then there’s the claim that Mr. Obama’s use of the ordinary metaphor “putting lipstick on a pig” was a sexist smear, and on and on.

Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.

They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being “McCain campaign lies,” it becomes “Obama on defensive in face of attacks.”

Still, how upset should we be about the McCain campaign’s lies? I mean, politics ain’t beanbag, and all that.

One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues — on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.

But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.

I’m not talking about the theory, often advanced as a defense of horse-race political reporting, that the skills needed to run a winning campaign are the same as those needed to run the country. The contrast between the Bush political team’s ruthless effectiveness and the heckuva job done by the Bush administration is living, breathing, bumbling, and, in the case of the emerging Interior Department scandal, coke-snorting and bed-hopping proof to the contrary.

I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.

And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?

What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse.

Anonymous said...

The presidential election is a well designed charade that makes us believe we have a real choice, when in reality both parties are virtually identical and controlled by the same interests. They squabble over minor details while completely agreeing with each other on the elitist agenda that has taken away our freedoms and brought our country to the brink of financial ruin.

The time has come to stand up and eliminate the establishment’s monopoly on our lives, our money, our health and our freedom. Let’s take our country back and transcend the two party system so we can have a real choice over our future.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you RPaul for pres,

Here is a bad analogy but is entertaining:

Your birthday is on February 29, hence a leap year, and you celebrate it every four years. Therefore, whatever present you get, you're stuck with for the four years.

Your family is odd (as is this post) and give you a choice between two presents. One is wrapped in blue, with a pretty bow while the red-wrapped present is decorated with streamers and glitter. You are hesitant to pick, for you do not know what the beautifully-wrapped presents contain.

Your hopes are high and you've heard hints of what you may get from your family, but they sometimes mislead you in their game. You select one and find that you're unhappy with it. You open the other to see what you passed up and it is the same exact present inside.

As with these presents, so goes with the dems and pubs. We need an offer of another present that is wrapped in translucent wrapping (i.e., a Third Party that doesn't tell us one thing to get the job and do another). Moral of the story is two-fold, write-in Dr. Ron Paul for President and quit worrying about birthday presents.

Anonymous said...

Will Sarah Palin become the new Thomas Eagleton?

Eagleton was the former US senator from Missouri who was briefly part of George McGovern's ticket in 1972, before it was revealed that he had undergone electro-shock therapy treatments to deal with "physical and nervous" exhaustion. After that news broke, Eagleton quit the ticket and was replaced by Sargent Shriver.

I understand if she'd quit, she has a lot on her plate and I don't think anyone would blame her.

Anonymous said...

The video The End of America:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9PulYpjGs

Must watch: "Naomi Wolf's End of America is a vivid, urgent, mandatory wake up call that addresses momentous issues of tyranny, democracy, survival: Who are we now? How did it come to this? Government by decree, torture by decree, secret prisons, disappeared prisoners. Others before us have lived in a rule-by-one, no checks and balances, security-imprisonment state that ended habeas corpus, due process of law, the right to know and access to information. But this is America! What about voting rights? Will there ever again be a paper trail? Can democracy be restored? For enlightenment and hope, we would all do well to carry about and give to all our allies Naomi Wolfs profound and urgent essay. It is the book we need to carry with us as we regroup and rally for the return of justice and political sanity."

—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of the three-volume Eleanor Roosevelt and distinguished professor at John Jay College

Anonymous said...

Why has the republican party changed from a fiscally conservative party to a communistic group?

Excerpt from USA Today article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-09-18-free-market-bailout_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Throughout more than a decade of recurrent crises in nations such as Mexico, Russia and Thailand, the United States offered the same advice: Let the market solve the problem and get the government out of the way. Even when the consequences of such economic "tough love" included widespread joblessness, soaring poverty and domestic turmoil, Washington insisted on the rule that the market knew best.
Now that it's the United States battling financial conflagration, it turns out there are exceptions to that rule. Such as Uncle Sam's takeover of AIG, the world's largest insurance company. Such as the quasi-nationalization of mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). Such as putting $29 billion of taxpayer money at risk to facilitate JPMorgan Chase's (JPC) acquisition of investment bank Bear Stearns.

Verity Quest said...

Where The Presidential Candidates Stand On 22 Issues.

The Associated Press

Published: September 19, 2008

Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama will share the stage this Friday for the first of three presidential candidate forums.

The first, to be held at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss, will focus on domestic issues.

The second, on Oct. 7 at Belmont University in Nashville, will be a town-hall format with questions submitted by the audience.

The third, on Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in New York, is devoted to foreign policy questions.

A debate between the vice presidential candidates, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sarah Palin, is scheduled for Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis.

Here is a snapshot of where the presidential candidates stand, and a look into what has been found about the public's mood, on 22 issues ranging from the economy to abortion:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/sep/19/where-presidential-candidates-stand/news-politics/

Anonymous said...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush said Saturday that the size of the package he is recommending to help the economy matches the size of the problem.

“It is a big package because it’s a big problem,” he told reporters at a joint news conference with Alvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia.

“The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package,” he said at a news conference.

My take: This problem stems from not allowing the economy to run its course from the "dot com" bubble, from the President chidding the real estate industry for not allowing more people to have homes, and from people/banks thinking that real estate prices will never fall. Effect: lower interest rates (to ward off the effects of the burst in the "dot com" bubble) and more unqualified people buying homes.

We put off treating a disease and now it has festered to "out of control." The governemnt has done enough to effectuate the current conditions. Now the government thinks it can fix it with a (about) $3 trillion bailout. Where is the money coming from? We, us taxpayers, are already drowning in debt.

When are we going to let capitalism fix capitalism? Slowly but surely capitalism is slipping away and so to is our democratic republic.

The actions of the administration is what got us here. Are we going to let them "fix" it more?

Anonymous said...

Hey Darth,

don't you mean about $700 billion bailout rather than $3 trillion?

Anonymous said...

This bailout will be done quickly because of the upcoming election.

This economic crisis is so near to the elections that it has created a political crisis. This $700billion+ band aid will resolve the political crisis and "put off" the economic crisis...making it worse in the long run (sometime after the elections).

Anonymous said...

To 9:32 am,

Did you forget about Fannie and Freddie (and more to come)?

WASHINGTON, Jul 11, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- As politicians call for taxpayer bailouts and a government takeover of troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, FreedomWorks would like to point out that a bailout is a transfer of possibly hundreds of billions of U.S. tax dollars to sophisticated investors and governments overseas.
The top five foreign holders of Freddie and Fannie long-term debt are China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. In total foreign investors hold over $1.3 trillion in these agency bonds, according to the U.S. Treasury's most recent "Report on Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities."
FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe commented, "The prospectus for every GSE bond clearly states that it is not backed by the United States government. That's why investors holding agency bonds already receive a significant risk premium over Treasuries."
"A bailout at this stage would be the worst possible outcome for American taxpayers and mortgage holders, who have been paying a risk premium to these foreign investors. It would change the rules of the game retroactively and would directly subsidize the risks taken by sophisticated foreign investors."
"A bailout of GSE bondholders would be perhaps the greatest taxpayer rip-off in American history. It is bad economics and you can be sure it is terrible politics."

Anonymous said...

September 18, 2008 3:38
Time in partnership with CNN Reports:

AIG and China: Could A "Special Relationship" Translate into Cash?

http://time-blog.com/china_blog/2008/09/aig_and_china_could_a_special.html

Coverage of the 85 billion-dollar AIG bailout by the Fed in the Chinese media has generally been fairly reserved. That's partly because AIG owns around twenty per cent of the People's Insurance Company of China, the country's largest casualty insurer, and the government doesn't want anyone getting worked up about a possible threat to its soundness or that of their policies. AIG also has a special, indeed unique, history in China. It is the only major U.S. company (eighth largest in the world until a few days ago) that was founded here. It started out in 1919 in Shanghai, founded by a gentleman named Cornelius Vander Starr. Of course it eventually morphed into the current globe-straddling, debt encumbered behemoth we see staggering around today. But the China connection remained strong, largely through the efforts of AIG's former chairman, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, who first started visiting China back in 1975 and has remained a true "Friend of China" as Beijing terms it since then. Greenberg (who was in China for the Olympics and was feted at a dinner in the Forbidden City attended by other FOCs such as Henry Kissinger and George H.W. Bush) was forced out of the top job at AIG in 2005 amidst a corruption scandal, but the company retains (or retained) a glow of China friendliness that is unique among large international corporations. Because of that there has been some speculation about whether Beijing might use some of its infamous, 1.5 trillion dollar mountain of foreign reserves to help bail out AIG.

Bush says na! Out taxpayers will bail them out.

Anonymous said...

Is Bush and Cheney going to run off with this money trillion dollar plus package to some luxury mountain resort in Pakistan with Osama bin Laden?

Anonymous said...

$700B bailout: The latest
Washington is racing to pass a historic intervention - and there are still more questions than answers.

article at http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/21/news/economy/what_we_know/index.htm?postversion=2008092116

Anonymous said...

Here is the bailout proposal. Treasury's bailout proposal
The legislative proposal was sent by the White House overnight to lawmakers.

see full proposal here:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/20/news/economy/treasury_proposal/index.htm

Anonymous said...

The bailout is essentially asking for $700 billion so that the governemnt may purchase mortgage-related assets from financial institutions from U.S. headquartered financial institutions.

The act allows the Sec. of the Treasury will over see all of the operations (unlike the trust created in the S&L crisis) and will sell the mortgage-related assets at any time.

My questions center mainly on two areas.

1. Section 8 of the Act states that decisions made by the Secretary are non-reviewable by a court of law. Is this normal? What happened to the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution? This shouldn't pre-empt the highest law of the land, should it?

2. Section 10 I believe is a "piggy back" where the government has increased its budget from 10.6 trillion to 11.315 trillion. What is the extra 15 billion for?

a full copy of the act may be found at http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/i...034655520080920

Anonymous said...

I hate to sound negative but I think this current bailout will solve the problem temporary. One of the next bail outs will be the auto industry.

Anonymous said...

Bush and Cheney’s serial abuse of the law of the land clearly marks them as domestic enemies of the Constitution.

They have illegally invaded and occupied Iraq, deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure, authorized torture, and unlawfully detained prisoners. These actions clearly mark them as war criminals. Accountability extends beyond impeachment to prosecution for war crimes even after their terms of office expire....

We are not conducting ourselves in a disorderly manner; our action is well-ordered and well-considered. We are not trespassing; we have come to the home of our Constitution to honor our oath to defend it.

President Bush and VP Cheney claim an inherent power to imprison American citizens whom they have determined to be this country’s enemies without obtaining a warrant, letting them hear the charges against them, or following other safeguards against wrongful punishment guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Under Bush’s administration, the government has engaged in inhumane treatment of prisoners that amounts to torture, and when Congress passed legislation to ban such treatment, he declared he would simply interpret the law his own way.

Although the Constitution says treaties are the “supreme law of the land,” the president has abrogated them on his own. And, we now know, he ordered a secret program of electronic surveillance of Americans without court warrants.

Not long ago, the Supreme Court could have been counted on to restore the checks that Bush has thrust aside. But the confirmation of the president’s two nominees to the Court may now tilt it in his direction. The common element in the background of the new justices is not merely their political conservatism, but their history of support for a broad construction of executive powers.

When confronted about some of his abuses of the Constitution in 2005, G.W. Bush said, “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it’s just a goddamned piece of paper.”

Hopefully, the next Presidency can help restore this document as the supreme law of the land. Then, and only then can we claim this land of the free.

Anonymous said...

A message from Dr. Ron Paul.

25/09/08 "Lew Rockwell" -- - Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress’ throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we’re being told it’s unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences – predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics – are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

* The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

* Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

* Then there’s this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don’t make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind – another example of the big choice we’re supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they’re not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we’ll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20862.htm

Anonymous said...

Bush and Paulson are Wrong!

Do we want to live in a system where profits are private, but losses are socialized? Where taxpayer money is used to prop up failed firms? Or do we want to live in a system where people are held responsible for their decisions, where imprudent behavior is penalized and prudent behavior rewarded? For somebody like me who believes strongly in the free market system, the most serious risk of the current situation is that the interest of few financiers will undermine the fundamental workings of the capitalist system. The time has come to save capitalism from the capitalists.

Full article: http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/luigi.zingales/Why_Paulson_is_wrong.pdf

Anonymous said...

Theo,

Here is a NY Post article that explains why we should support the bailout:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/
09272008
/postopinion/opedcolumnists/why_the
_bailout__130927.htm?page=0

Anonymous said...

Lehman golden parchuttes found.

Barclays discovers $2.5 billion more in Lehman. Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them prior to filing bankruptcy that is worth $2.5 billion.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business...aff-937560.html

Verity Quest said...

Weller finally surfaces, apologizes for missing important votes (votes yes on the bailout/rescue plan).

http://thecapitolfaxblog.com/2008/10/03/weller-finally-surfaces-apologizes-for-missing-important-votes/

Friday, Oct 3, 2008

* Retiring Congresscritter Jerry Weller finally surfaced this week. Weller missed last week’s vote on the financial system bailout bill and wouldn’t return reporters’ calls. He was the only member of the US House who missed the vote. At one point this week, GOP state Rep. Bill Mitchell called on Weller to resign if he couldn’t handle his duties. Weller also missed an important vote on the EJ&E Railroad expansion issue. Not a good thing. Last month alone, Weller missed 71 votes.

Anyway, like I said, Weller finally returned somebody’s call yesterday….

“In hindsight, missing votes over the past week was a mistake, and I apologize to my constituents for missing those votes,” Weller said in a phone call from Washington, D.C. […]

Weller…said he stayed home in Morris because of a medical matter concerning his family, reiterating an explanation given earlier by his staff. Weller was in Washington on Thursday, waiting for a vote on a new version of the rescue plan. […]

Several local political and community leaders said they have not talked with Weller or seen him in months. Among those was Frankfort Mayor Jim Holland, who said he tried repeatedly to talk with Weller about the Canadian National proposal.

Weller said he was puzzled by Holland’s inability to reach him.

Anonymous said...

Ms. Sarah Blago-Palin:

The offical residence and office of Alaska’s Governor are in Juneau, the state capital, but governor Palin has preferred working out of a satellite office in Anchorage (550 West 7th Avenue), a short drive from her Wasilla home. Quite understandable, and better for the family.

But Mrs. Palin has still been claiming Juneau as her “work station,” and claiming a “per diem” travel and housing allowance for staying in her own home, sleeping in her own bed. 19 months in office; 312 per diems, $17,000 for sleeping in her own bed.

This is not just sleasy; in most governments at any level and most U.S. corporations it would be considered fraud and grounds for dismissal if not legal action.

There are other items of interest in Governor Palin’s travel documents, the most curious (and spurious) are those charging the State for her family’s travel “on official business.”

When you lead a government representing a half-million people that has the luxury of a $5 billion surplus though the happy accident of underground petroleum, no one really cares much if you pad your expense account a bit. But the US Government is trillions in debt already; putting a petty thief a heartbeat away from its leadership seems less than prudent.

Is there a book "How to be Crooked as Governor for Dummies" that both Palin and Blago share?

Anonymous said...

Vote fraud alert!!!!

Vote Fraud: when the electioneers stage a false front to sway voters to vote a certain way.

by The Associated Press Friday October 10, 2008, 3:40 PM
TROY, N.Y. -- Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for "Barack Osama."

The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as "Barack Osama" and "John McCain." In the United States, the best-known person named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaida terrorist group.

Commissioners for the Rensselaer County Board of Elections say they regret the error but do not acknowledge in a statement exactly what the error is.

Source: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/oops_osama_on_ballot_in_rensse.html

The Vote Fraud has begun, don't let it creep into your ballot box.

Anonymous said...

United Kingdom Prime Minister to pull troops out of Iraq? "They're no longer needed."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
worldnews/middleeast/iraq/3187410/British-troops-not-needed-in-Iraq-says-Nouri-al-Maliki.html

Anonymous said...

After watching the debate I couldn't help but think that McCain painted himself as "another 4 more years" with his health care plan (I wonder how long the insurance industry has been lobbying for that deal where they can "cherry pick" their clients and the average "Joe" is left uninsured?), the voucher plan, and of course the wars.

From the way I understand the voucher plan is that it only benefits those who can afford to send their kids to private schools. Please correct me if I'm wrong; but, the way I see it is that if a pubic school "fails" (NCLB) in my town I could receive a $1,000 reduction ($1,000) in the cost of sending my child to a private school. Most private schools cost well over $5,000 a year. I'd have to fork out at least $4,000 to send my child there...this is not in the budget for over 90% of the population. Net result of the voucher program is a $1,000 discount, at the taxpayers' expense, for the wealthier people.

Sounds like, as McCain put it, "Class Warfare" to me.

Anonymous said...

1. Obama Voted NO on extending the PATRIOT Act's wiretap provision.

2. McCain Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act's wiretap provision.

3. John McCain supports giving the federal government more domestic surveillance power

4. John McCain opposes extending the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees

5. Obama Co-sponsored the SAFE Act, a bill to amend the USA PATRIOT ACT to place reasonable limitations on the use of surveillance and the issuance of search warrants, and for other purposes.

6. Barack Obama strongly supports extending the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees

7. Barack Obama strongly supports keeping abortion legal. While Abortion has certain ethical meanings, it is still a RIGHT and a NECESSITY to keep Abortion legal for rape, and severely ill women.

8. John McCain strongly opposes keeping abortion legal.

9. John McCain strongly opposes the principle of equal access to internet bandwidth known as “network neutrality.”

10. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of equal access to internet bandwidth known as “network neutrality.”

Civil liberties is where any good America should start in weighing the candidates.

Anonymous said...

Energy is one of the highest concerns we citizens have. Here is a look:

Obama: Supports innovations in alternative energy in US based companies, instead of largely foreign based oil companies, which will solve the energy crisis, bolster the economy, and create thousands of jobs for Americans. Decrease use of carbon fuels.

McCain: He little about alternative energies, and wishes to simply delay the problem until it gets even worse by drilling off-shore. Not to mention, this will destroy the environment some more, of course. Unless people and companies are pressured to switch, nobody is going to.

Anonymous said...

With all Due Respect October 17, 2008 10:45 PM;

Protecting the AMERICAN CITIZENS' CIVIL LIBERTIES is what McCain will do.

Obama is advocating the protection of the TERRORISTS' CIVIL LIBERTIES.

We do not want our homes and families bombed by terrorists, yet we do not want to give the government the tools they need to protect us....

"TOTO, WE ARE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE". Stop and look at the BIG picture. How soon we all forgot 9-11.

If you have nothing to hide as a citizen of the United States, you will perceive the PATRIOT Act as a PROTECTION of rights, NOT as a loss of rights. The checks and balances are built in to this Act.
It is TERRORISM which has destroyed OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES.

In addition but MORE IMPORTANT is that our Civil Right to transparency, accountability and honesty in OUR government, AT ALL LEVELS has been destroyed by us, WE THE PEOPLE, our own AMERICAN CITIZENS because of OUR OWN pathetic apathy....Where are the checks and balances here? WE GAVE them all away.

When did it become acceptable in our society to lie by telling the people what they think they want to hear? only for THEIR OWN personal gain?

Biden is an excellent example of this...in the primaries, he reports Obama is NOT ready for the presidency; but NOW reports Obama is the greatest thing on earth....

What happened to plain old honesty? transparency?accountability? If we as citizens DEMAND these three values from our governments - we will not have to worry about the Patriot Act...

Anonymous said...

I think the government has been very transparent in that they’re trashing the Constitution. There is no formidable definition of terrorist. The act(s) leave the definition of terrorist wide open so that maybe they could arrest you, me, or anyone else they deem is against their agenda. Read some history on how Hitler rose to power…he did the same exact thing using the same psychology….fairly transparent to those who know their history.

1. USA Patriot Act - A 342 page document presented to Congress one day before voting on it that allows the government access to your bank and email accounts, as well as your medical and phone records with no court order. They can also search your home anytime without a warrant.
2. USA Patriot Act II - This one allows secret government arrests, the legal authority to seize your American citizenship, and the extraction of your DNA if you are deemed a potential terrorist.
3. Military Commissions Act of 2006 - Ends habeas corpus, the right to an attorney, and the right to court review of one's detention and arrest. Without this most basic right, all other rights are gone too since anyone can be detained indefinitely. Now anyone may be arrested and incarcerated and nobody would know.
4. NSPD 51 - A directive signed by George W. Bush on May 9, 2007, that allows the President to declare martial law, effectively transforming the U.S. into a dictatorship with no checks and balances from the Legislative or Judicial Branches. Parts of this directive are considered classified and members of Congress have been denied the right to review it.
5. Protect America Act of 2007 - Allows unprecedented domestic wiretapping and surveillance activities with a reduction in FISA court oversight. Probable cause is not needed.
6. John Warner Defense Authorization Act - Signed by George W. Bush on October 17, 2007, this act allows the President to declare a public emergency and station troops anywhere in America without the consent of the governor or local authorities to "suppress public disorder.
7. Homegrown Terrorism and Radicalization Act - Passed overwhelmingly by Congress on October 23, 2007, is now awaiting a Senate vote. This act will beget a new crackdown on dissent and the Constitutional rights of American citizens. The definitions of "terrorism" and "extremism" are so vague that they could be used to generalize against any group that is working against the policies of the Administration. In this bill, "violent radicalization" criminalizes thought and ideology while "homegrown terrorism" is defined as "the planed use of force to coerce the government." The term, "force" could encompass political activities such as protests, marches, or any other form of non-violent resistance.

Anonymous said...

Gregg Palast gives us a "Vote Fraud Alert":

Some early W.Va. voters angry over switched votes
Jackson County touch-screens switched votes from Democrat to Republican.

- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

-Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.

- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.
Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent."

- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging" ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.

- Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls."
Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state's purging his registration was particularly shocking - he's the county elections supervisor.
The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times.

"Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics," report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are "systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats."

The investigators level a deadly serious charge:
"If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering."

Anonymous said...

9/29/08 COLUMBUS -- A high-level Republican consultant has been subpoenaed in a case regarding alleged tampering with the 2004 election.

Michael L. Connell was served with a subpoena in Ohio on Sept. 22 in a case alleging that vote-tampering during the 2004 presidential election resulted in civil rights violations. Connell, president of GovTech Solutions and New Media Communications, is a website designer and IT professional who created a website for Ohio’s secretary of state that presented the results of the 2004 election in real time as they were tabulated.

At the time, Ohio’s Secretary of State, Kenneth J. Blackwell, was also chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection effort in Ohio.

Connell is refusing to testify or to produce documents relating to the system used in the 2004 and 2006 elections, lawyers say. His motion to quash the subpoena asserts that the request for documents is burdensome because the information sought should be “readily ascertainable through public records request” – but also, paradoxically, because “it seeks confidential, trade secrets, and/or proprietary information” that “have independent economic value” and “are not known to the public, or even to non-designated personnel within or working for Mr. Connell’s business.”

According to sources close to the office of Clifford Arnebeck, one of the Ohio attorneys who brought the case, Arnebeck intends to ask the court to compel Connell to testify. An emergency conference with the judge, originally scheduled for Monday, is to be rescheduled.

Inside sources say that Karl Rove is behind this and that Connell is taking the fall.

Anonymous said...

Their has been massive purges of voters in the primaries. Be sure to check your registration and polling place. Don't take a chance on losing your vote in November.

Make sure you are registered to vote by the deadline in your state, and find out where you vote on election day. Many voters went to the polls in the primary election and discovered they weren't on the registration rolls. Don't let that happen to you.

Call your local election office (Grundy County Clerk's phone number is 815-941-3222) today to make sure your vote counts. Spread the word.

Anonymous said...

McCain aides are “frustrated” with palin as she asserts her own agenda according to the article:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/...in-going-rogue/

A McCain adviser stated that “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone” and “she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

There is also strong support for the rumor that she is using her candidacy as a stepping stone into the entertainment industry.

How does that saying go about biting the hand that feeds you?

Anonymous said...

to October 25, 4:02 PM, et al...

I am so disinterested in rumor, innuendo, half truths, distortion of facts to present a certain perception, cover ups, out and out lies, etc. Both from the media and most all politicians, both parties, all levels of government...

If you look closely, most reporting whether written or verbal newscasts, articles, etc would fall under the category of "commentary" but implied as factual "news".

Politicians [and their affiliated parties] say one thing while doing the other.

Where is the truth? the provable facts?

How can we demand accountability or transparency of our government when we passively believe whatever we hear or read?

It seems we have turned into a "National Enquirer" type society. And the sad thing?....this type of journalism, political leadership is what we want, what Americans thrive on.

Verity Quest said...

to "Just how Hitler trained them..."

I agree, our society is after the sensationalism of exploited facts.

But, I too have read that Palin is looking to do a polarized political talk show.

Anonymous said...

The question mark amid all this speculation is whether Palin has any interest in an entertainment career. There's little indication of that, unless you count the vp candidate sending a tape of herself to late-night host Craig Ferguson last year before anyone in the lower 48 had ever heard of Wasilla. For a segment on his "Late Late Show," Ferguson had been soliciting invitations from politicians to help him become a citizen. The host was impressed enough with the unknown Palin's screen presence that he put the video on the air.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Dear Verity Quest:

"But, I too have read that Palin is looking to do a polarized political talk show."

Is this not a "sensationalism of exploited facts"?

Verity Quest said...

To 7:39 am,

yes, I was trying to make a joke. I apologize for it not going over as planned.

Anonymous said...

Chain email from Wachovia VP a fraud!

Excerpt from: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/woul...ofits_if_i.html

A new e-mail being circulated about Obama's tax proposals is almost entirely false.
Alert readers may already have noted that this chain e-mail does not provide links to any of Obama's actual proposals or cite any sources for the claims it makes. That is because they are made up.This widely distributed message is so full of misinformation that we find it impossible to believe that it is the result of simple ignorance or carelessness on the part of the writer. Almost nothing it says about Obama's tax proposals is true. We conclude that this deception is deliberate.

One version of this e-mail was sent around by a financial professional, Robert Jenkins, a vice president of Wachovia Securities in St. Louis, Mo. Even though Jenkins is an investment adviser and not a tax expert, we thought his endorsement might seem to some readers to give this false e-mail greater credibility. So we attempted to ask Jenkins about the matter. But instead of a reply from him, we received the following message from another Wachovia official, whose identity we confirmed by telephone:

Wachovia Apologizes
Thank you for contacting Wachovia regarding a recent email regarding "proposed changes in taxes after the 2008 General election." Please know that Wachovia does not endorse any political party, candidate, or initiative, and that our Firm did not endorse or approve the email as it is contrary to our Code of Conduct and Corporate Values.

Members of executive and departmental leadership in Wachovia Corporation and Wachovia Securities have been made aware of the email, and Robert Jenkins has been dealt with appropriately and directly. Every effort has been made to ensure that no additional emails or communications of this nature will be issued by any member of our Firm.

We sincerely apologize for this unfortunate incident.

Cynthia Plackemeier

Assistant Branch Manager

Could one surmise that this Wachovia employee was afraid he wasn't going to get a bonus check from the bailout?

Anonymous said...

More executives sold on Obama?

Among Obama's contributors, 5,845 list "CEO" or "chief executive" in their title, compared with 2,597 of McCain's donors, according to election records compiled by CQ MoneyLine. In the 2003-04 cycle, 3,567 of Bush's donors were listed that way, compared with 1,686 for Kerry.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt noted that unlike Obama, McCain accepts money from federal lobbyists.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-27-prez-money_N.htm

Verity Quest said...

Voter registration at highest level since women got the vote

The Center for the Study of the American Electorate today released its voter registration figures for this election. The increase was moderate -- 2.5% -- but the result is a record.

The center, part of American University, projects that 153.1 million of the country's eligible citizens are now registered to vote. That's 73.5% -- better than the previous high of 72.1% in 1964 and the highest since at least 1920, when women were given the right to vote.

Center director Curtis Gans says this is the second straight election with a significant registration increase, coming after a 3% boost in 2004. He says as many as 135 million people -- nearly 65% of those eligible -- could turn out to vote. That would be the highest turnout since 1960.

Gans projects Democratic registration will be up 1.4% or 2.9 million this year, while GOP registration will be down 1.5 million. The center said that's a small drop but that it declined at all "in this year of intense citizen interest in the election is significant."

Source: http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/11/voter-registrat.html

Seventy1 said...

Take your dumb rube Alaskan wannabe body and move there. People in America lose their life savings, IRA accounts, bonds and CD's from Wall Strret leeches and they cash out with millions with the "Golden Parachute". Now, we are supposed to bail them out with our taxes while the republican veep to be, goes out and spends $150,000 on wardrobes for her campaign? No, there is no fine line here. I make less than $30,000 a year and that's gross, not net.That would take everything I make for the next almost nine years to net, to buy that wardrobe. NINE YEARS! My grandfather told me an old saying, "A women nedds four animals to live on. A mink on her back, a jaguar in the garage, a tiger in bed and a jackass to pay for it all." Go get her Nannook!

Anonymous said...

Inside source reveals FEMA & DHS preparing for mass graves and martial law near Chicago
February 11th, 2009 | Audio, Martial Law

By: D. H. Williams @ 10:41 PM - EST

An Indiana county municipal official in the vicinity of Chicago reveals the contents of his meetings with FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. The initial requests seem reasonable enough when FEMA asks the county officials to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan to deal with flooding, fires, high winds and tornadoes.

But as the required meetings and calls with FEMA and DHS continue over a two year period their request become more unusual, raising suspicions of county officials

Listen to the audio:



“We want to know every important thing in this county. We want to know where police departments are. Where weapons are stored. Hazardous material. Where can we land a helicopter. Where are the airports. How big a plane can you land at the airport. Where are all the bridges. Where are all the power stations. Where are all the generating stations.Where are all the substations. They literally wanted to know where everything was. I’m sitting there thinking man if there was ever martial law. This kind of information is exactly the kind of stuff they are going to want. We’re just laying it all out for them right there.”

During the legally mandated meetings held with FEMA and DHS different disaster scenarios were reveled to county officials:

In late December 2008 municipal officials were invited to Indianapolis for a briefing on the state of Indiana. There were told if industry were to collapse for example GM going bankrupt resulting in mass unemployment a depression would soon follow and municipalities could expect to loose 40% of their funds.
Every county in the nation would be required to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan.
The county should prepare a plan to vaccinate the entire population within 48 hours and practice the plan several times.
FEMA inquired to where mass graves could be placed in the county and would they accept bodies from elsewhere.
The sheriff’s department via the state sheriff association was told that no .223 ammunition rounds would be available as the military would be purchasing all stocks.
The county was asked to make plans for “hardening” of police and fire stations, putting in hardened bunker type buildings around town.
The county was asked to make plans for the possibility of up to 400,000 refugees from Chicago.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous, 03.26.09:
And your point?

karla said...

U.S. fund for developing electric cars is untouched

excerpt from:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/27/business/green.php

The U.S. Energy Department has $25 billion to make loans to hasten the arrival of the next generation of automotive technology - electric-powered cars. But no money has been allocated so far, even though the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan program, established in 2007, has received applications from 75 companies, including start-ups as well as the three Detroit automakers.

With General Motors and Chrysler making repeat visits to Washington to ask for bailout money to stave off insolvency, some members of Congress are starting to ask why the Energy Department money is not yet flowing. The loans also are intended to help fulfill President Barack Obama's campaign promise of putting one million electric cars on American roads by 2015.

"Politicians are breaking down the door asking why the money isn't being sent out," said Michael Carr, counsel to the Senate Energy Committee, which oversees the Energy Department.