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""Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.""Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even [Republican] Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout." ... "The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even [Republican President Bush's] Treasury Secretary [Henry] Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone. " -By Michael Moore""Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages."
""At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees."
""Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.""
[Hank Paulson:] "We gave you a simple, three-page legislative outline and I thought it would have been presumptuous for us on that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of Congress, that’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight: I believe we need oversight. We need oversight.""What the proposal actually did, of course, was explicitly rule out any oversight, plus grant immunity from future review:"
"Sec. 8. Review.""I’m not playing gotcha here. This is telling: if Paulson can’t be honest about what he himself sent to Congress — if he not only made an incredible power grab, but is now engaged in black-is-white claims that he didn’t — there is no reason to trust him on anything related to his bailout plan." -By Paul Krugman/Blog -NYTimes"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."
"[McCain:] "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."""So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!" -By Paul Krugman/Blog -NYTimes
"Laura Bush"Wow! No wonder McCain has so many houses: his wife has the price of a Scottsdale [Arizona] split-level hanging from her ears." ... "(All prices except Laura’s shoes and Cindy’s watch are estimates, and the jewelry prices are based on the assumption that the pieces are real.)" -VanityFair.com
Oscar de la Renta suit: $2,500
Stuart Weitzman heels: $325
Pearl stud earrings: $600–$1,500
Total: Between $3,425 and $4,325""Cindy McCain
Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100"
"Per Capital Federal Earmark Funding""He notes the following amounts:"
"(All figures for 2008 except Wasilla, which is for 2002)"
"Arizona: $18.70"
"National Average: $51.19"
"Alaska: $506.34"
"Wasill, AK: $1,000.00"
"–$50: The amount the average state received in earmarked funds, per capita in 2008""Some of these earmarks drew the scorn of Senator John McCain. The LA Time reports that, “three times in recent years, McCain’s catalogs of ‘objectionable’ spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time — Sarah Palin.”" ... "As Scott Lilly writes, “Palin has advertised herself as a reformer and a skeptic of earmarking while maneuvering to become the earmark queen of the earmark state.”" -ThinkProgress.org/Wonk Room
"–$506: The amount received by Alaska’s citizen per capita in 2008, represented by the Senate’s earmarker in chief, Ted Stevens, ten times the national average"
"–Over $1000: The annual amount received per capita in Wasilla between 2000 and 2003, twice the 2008 Alaska state average"
"* Laundry and dry cleaning service with pick-up and delivery"" -By Matthew Yglesias -ThinkProgress.org/Wonk Room
"* Personal spa services"
"* Travel and driver services"
"* Dining reservations and catering"
"* Special events tickets"
"* Shopping services"
"* Housekeeping and maintenance services"
"* Pet services, auto detailing, plant care, etc."
"* Business services"
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| Obama, Barack
Paul, Ron McCain, John Huckabee, Mike Thompson, Fred Romney, Mitt Clinton, Hillary |
$60,642
$45,512 $10,665 $7,950 $6,350 $5,550 $3,240 |
"Henn: Forty Deuce is a strip club."
"Sessions: You know, I've never seen that. It is what I would call a burlesque show where there's a woman who comes out and has a dress on... Uh, she never get's naked. There's no nudity, there's no nudity in there."