The site promises handbags that look like Gabana but instead of being $600 they will be from $30 to $80.     Peace Out – 3C

Good things happened over the last few days. My conservative and liberal (for lack of a better monniker, since we seem to need them) friends and I talked about the Bail Out…constantly. No matter what political party, everyone said 1)there was enough blame, on all sides, to go around. 2)we are all fed up with rhetoric. 3)we expect our leaders to do the right thing, whatever that is. 

It became clear to me that no one trusted anybody.

I was streaming the House discussion before the vote (CNN provided a stream on their website).  Many people talked, and then John Boehner spoke. I don’t share many of his political views, but I was impressed. Here was a conservative Republican, talking to his colleagues, imploring them to put partisanship aside, suck it in, and do the right thing for the Country by supporting the Bill. Then Nancy Pelosi got up to speak. 

I was appalled. I cringed. I started emailing friends, asking how someone like that can be Speaker of the House. They emailed back in agreement. This ‘agreement’ came from friends who are more liberal and friends who are conservative.

Let’s get this straight: The Speaker of The House of Representatives is supposed to be a leader who is adept at forging alliances.  Someone who leads, not someone who snipes. Yet there was Nancy Pelosi, not more than five minutes before a vote was expected, chastising the last 8 years of The Bush Admn. and conservative right wing politics run amok.  I wanted to be Elivs and shoot the screen!

I admit that the Republican Reps who said they didn’t support the Bill because of her sound lame. They can be pissed if they want, but don’t vote based on that or all you are doing is showing your lack of leadership as well.

Okay now for some good news. Thousands of people called their Representatives over the last week. Grassroots was at it’s best.  Supposedly, the voting was affected by the voter outcry. One more reason to believe that the more we all get involved, the better off we will be.

But how sad is it, that we cannot trust our political leaders? As Joel Auchenbach and Ashley Surdin said in the Post today, “A political establishment held in higher regard might have been able to hold together some kind of coalition of the willing. But distrust of the nation’s leaders, from the leaders of Congress to the president of the United States, foreclosed that possibility.”

The rest of the Washington Post article is here.  An even better example of the citizen outcry and involvement over the last week showed up in today’s WS Journal. This article is only one of many about the Bailout and in my opinion, the WSJ covered it best with an article entitled How Voter Fury Stopped the Bailout.  

Some sites and blogs weigh in, from the WSJ article:

The proposal’s defeat was also cheered on by a number of blogs that in recent days have posted links to lawmakers’ telephone and fax numbers and urged citizens to oppose the plan. They included stopthehousingbailout.com, a Web site organized by a 37-year-old Los Angeles attorney named Morgan Ward Duran, and    globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com, run by Mike Shedlock, an investment adviser at SitkaPacific Capital Management. Mr. Shedlock said in an interview Monday that his site had received 1.7 million page hits this month, which he said was half a million more than normal.

I plan on calling Dennis Kucinich and giving him a piece of my mind about Nancy Pelosi. (I am sure Dennis can’t wait to hear from me)   I think the best place to start is by getting a new Speaker. Someone who actually understands what the job of Speaker of the House was designed to do, not what it has evolved into at this point in time.  Bah humbug!  3C

BTW: This is the only guy, the only Representative who did not vote today. Jerry Weller from Illinois. You want to read about him? Send him an email and ask why, unless he was on his deathbed, he chose to add to his poor attendance record on the day when one of the most important votes needed to be cast?  Here is a link to Jerry Weller.

Crain’s Cleveland weighs in with some info from Sutton, Kucinich and LaTourette on why they did not support the Bill.

10.03.08 update:  by now everyone knows, the bail out has passed on it’s second go-round in the House (after tweaking by the Senate earlier this week).  Here is a PD run down of the votes.  Betty Sutton switched her vote, Kucinich and LaTourette still voted nay.

There is another site called Campus Books.  You can apparently save money buying them from this site. I imagine it’s hard to get every book you need on the ‘Revolt’ site, since it depends on whether someone is giving it away.  According to this Market Watch report on Campus Books, you can save as much as 49% of the textbook cost.

Then there is possibly another option.  There is a real push in academia towards the Open Textbook concept. This means textbooks are online and useable by any instructor or student.  This is I think free as well. You can read about the Open Textbook movement here in USA Today.  The article features a Texas oceanography professor using the open textbook system. Are any of our local college professors using this system?  If not, and you are a student, you may as well learn what lobbying is all about and see if you can convince your profs to do this. Especially in subjects like Oceanography or Law or any medical field where the books are very expensive.

Saving money is a beautiful thing, as Martha Stewart might say   Peace Out 3C

Not sure it’s ever easy with our Government, as far as transparency is concerned. Ever read the tax codes? In any event,  we are dealing with a financial crisis that is broad in scope – by now, unless you live in a cave, you know the Feds are trying to work out a Bailout Program which basically means buying unstable mortgage loans, for example, from large institutions in danger of going under if this does not happen.

First, let me link you to BIll Callahan’s and Frank Ford’s letter on what they proposed to some local Cleveland politicians, non-profits and others regarding this issue.  It’s a great read in itself. Then head to Callahan’s Cleveland Diary  because no one can organize a discussion around foreclosure/financial issues like Bill can. I strongly urge everyone to start a dialogue there. Ask questions and I bet we can get them answered. He already has another post about this issue.

Secondly, here are some links to good articles about the issue. First, The Economist weighs in on a very clear, concise summary of what transpired. It doesn’t include info from today but it is a great overview.

Next a text in as complete a fashion as it can be, of the proposal put together by Bernanke and Paulson etc. This is on a WSJ blog post.  It’s obviously a working paper or work in progress. Take a look, for example, at Sec. 8:

Sec. 8. Review.

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.

How do you feel about this? I’m uncomfortable, it makes it sound like there are no checks and balances or true oversight that is accountable and transparent to us, the taxpayers.  Maybe someone can explain it to me on Bill’s blog.

Peace Out – 3C

Monday 22nd Update: Here is a link to the Democratic Response/Proposal for the Bailout.