"there you go, keep looking backward Joe" - yes Sarah, I can see McCain would like voters to FORGET

[JohnWxy]

about the last 8 years of economic disaster for the middle class.

That would serve John McCain well since he played a part in creating the disaster. McCain has been, as any good Republican should be, a consistent proponent of DEREGULATION of the financial markets, including toxic lending practices and unregulated derivative and futures contracts trading in energy markets (ENRON). It was the Republican sponsored bill (Phil Gramm - John McCain's top economic advisor was one of the sponsors of the Commodities Futures Modernization act(CFMA)) which lead to the ENRON Debacle (Costing California residents Billions), the massive price rises in oil/gas (because of unrgulated markets where energy futures were traded and even lax regulation of the regulated exchanges: 81% of the futures contracts held on NYMEX in early 2008 were held for speculation purposes - NO, that's NOT a typo 81% of the contracts were speculative plays) and finally the trading in mortgage backed securities which would have brought about the colapse of our whole banking sysstem were it not for the effors of the Government (i.e. the "lowly" taxpayer). YOu remember the Government, that's the institution the Republicans consider an evil empire, the "enemy".

(Actually, the CFMA couldn't get passed when Representative knew what they were voting on, so Gramm slipped in as a rider to an 11,000 page omnibus funding bill, the night before it was to be voted on! MOst Senators/Representatives didn't even know it was in there.

Yes, it would serve Senator McCain well for voters to forget the last 8 years, Bubbly Sara ("GAH-AH-AH-UH-AH-LLLLIE!, I'm running to be a heart-beat away from LEADING the most powerful nation on Earth. GOTCHA!") but it wouldn't serve the voters well. Looking backward, again, they can't forget the last 8 years if they are concerned for their own (and THE NATION's) welfare.

Foreclosure Phil

Gramm's long been a handmaiden to Big Finance. In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the sec's workload shot up 80 percent, but its staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an sec rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt's memoir, he warned the sec chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut(Here he was using the old Reagan tactic of nullifying a law passed by the Congress by defunding the enforcement of it.) And in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms—setting off a wave of merger mania.

But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.

It's not exactly like Gramm hid his handiwork—far from it. The balding and bespectacled Texan strode onto the Senate floor to hail the act's inclusion into the must-pass budget package. But only an expert, or a lobbyist, could have followed what Gramm was saying. The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the SEC nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century."

It didn't quite work out that way. For starters, the legislation contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company's board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.)

Phil Gramm also sponsored the Finacial Services Modernization Act, which basically Repealed the restrictions on banks affiliating with securities firms contained in sections 20 and 32 of the Glass-Steagall Act.

"This Act was a huge coup by the banking industry. This bill allowed banks to things that they never could before, like leveraged investment because of the decreased requirement on how much capital they had to keep on hand." --- you'll remember the reason the latest $700 Billion bail-out is needed is because of a lack of liquidity in the banking system. They need money on hand to make loans.


By the way, in case you forgot, Phil Gramm is the guy who said: "America has become a nation of whiners." and.. "I think the country is suffering a "mental" recession." Don't be too angry at Gramm he is just being honest in expressing a true unadulterated Republican sentiment that the "little people" don't amount for much except to serve in war and pay most of the taxes (relative to income). Every four years though, the repubs tell the serfs in this Corporate Fuedalist system (Feudal Capitalism - freemarkets with no democracy_JW) how they are trying to help "protect" the average American from "the enemy, the Government". -- WELL, IN A WAY, THE REPUBLICANS ARE RIGHT. THE GOVERNMENT IS THE ENEMY - - WHEN THEY ARE RUNNING IT. __JW

[kestrel91316]

1. Sarah would prefer to turn a blind eye to the mistakes of the past, but

she would do well to pay attention to the saying: THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN FROM THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT.

[Cresent City Kid]

2. What a joke

This whole notion of Obama only looking to the past is a weak card to play. Obama's point is that McCrook won't be any different, and other than "being a maverick", and vague promises of reform, they have done nothing to disprove Obama's charge. They certainly have done nothing to defend the last 8 years other than to propose similar values and policies.

[isaacsgs]

3. Entertaining

The entertaining thing is that Palin knew exactly what she was doing which was setting her up as a female Reagan delivering a similar line to Reagan's "There you go again" to Jimmy Carter. Palin is a very good politician. I think teaming her with McCain, if they lose, really screwed her and burned a good politician for the future of the Republican party.

[JohnWxy]

4. Yeah, she's a good REpublican capable of doing or saying just about anything to get power and she

knows how to ABUSE IT! definitely a good Republican. a real sociopath.