Outstanding post. A few typos including the Salon main page blurb.

Cheers

Thanks for pulling together what the right-wingers have been saying. I'm very encouraged by that. I hadn't read those things, as I don't like to bleach my laptop, but I had noticed that even Richard Shelby wasn't lining up to buy the Paulson Plan at face value. When I made my phone calls to Washington this morning I tried to call his office to thank him but couldn't get through. I did send an email, though, thanking him for his words in support of oversight on the money and for reinstating regulation of Wall Street.

One article I did read gave me great joy. At CQPolitics, I found this:

Draft legislative text circulating late Sunday indicated Democrats were bent on putting their own imprint on the bailout bill.

Under the draft, the Treasury secretary would have to set certain standards for executive compensation at any firm seeking to sell its shaky assets to the new entity. Those standards would have to include limitations on severance pay “determined to be appropriate in the public interest in light of the assistance being given to the entity,” among other requirements.

The standards also would have to include “a claw-back provision for incentive compensation paid to a senior executive based on earnings, gains, or other criteria that are later proven to be inaccurate,” according to the draft.

The Treasury entity would also be required to leverage its role as the holder of mortgage-backed securities to work to avoid foreclosure, along with other efforts to keep people in their homes.

The draft language would put the Government Accountability Office in an oversight role over the new Treasury facility, and the GAO would have to report back to Congress at least every 60 days on the program’s performance.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/3m33xz

We need to burn up those phone lines to Washington, folks. The tide could turn in our favor on this since there is support from both sides for reinstating regulation of Wall Street. The bonus, of course, is McCain's long history advocating deregulation, so if we can achieve the types of reforms CQPolitics is reporting, we could win big.

I especially like the "claw back" reference. Somehow,that brings to mind an image of taking back ill-gotten assets from the cold, dead hands of those who stole them.

This plan is an abomination. The long term effects will be more disastrous to this country than the Iraq war. Redistributing wealth from taxpayers to Wall Street, under the "supervision" of the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, is beyond insane.

And this morning the real meat of the proposal came to light. Allowing Goldman Sachs to become a commercial bank, to tap into Fed funds and thus completing the evisceration of Glass Steagall.

This must not happen.

That we now have to rely on the Republicans to be the voice of reason in stopping a government run amok. It's the same depression I felt when it seemed like Bob Barr was the only one concerned with our civil liberties.... The worst part about is that our legislators have become so incapable of self-reflection that the Democrats are unlikely to pause and even consider what the republican revolt even means: I.e., some of the republicans are a better republican Opposition team than the Democratic minority is.

No, no, I realize that the Democrats are the Majority. Now please go tell them.

All that is happening is that Paulson is not "one of them" so they oppose this. They themselves don't really understand that, so they attribute it to fears of an Obama presidency. But an Obama (or Clinton) presidency has been looming for the past year or so, and they still did not fear the FISA bill.

They oppose giving Paulson these powers for the same reason they opposed putting Miers on SCOTUS. Neither is a movement conservative. If the Treasury secretary was Grover Norquist or Pete Coors, they'd love this idea.

The other thing to remember is that McCain is not a movement conservative, at least in the eyes of other movement conservatives, so even if he wins they will not be happy with his Treasury Secretary most likely (well, seeing that it would be Phil Gramm, maybe they would be happy).

The Post has an article today talking about how they found 1 person in a survey of residents in Prince William County in favor of the bail-out. Just like the telcom immunity issue, this is one where the public is uniformly opposed, and the only people in favor are those who stand to benefit. Just substitute banks and other investment institutions for telcom companies and you have the constituency for this bill.

I'm just sick and tired of the consequences of mistakes never visiting upon those who made them. Iraq war soldiers, Iraqi civilians for that matter, people who bought homes they could afford, and all the other vast categories of people are the people who have paid and are paying the price for the government's mistakes, the banks bad investments, unjustified ars, etc.

... has stated we need to pass this bill immediately, without "Christmas Tree"-ing it. No doubt he has privately received the same assurances he obtained regarding the Mukasey confirmation, as well as the capital gains tax loophole. While we make all sorts of noise regarding Lieberman, I'm starting to think perhaps a bigger problem is his neighbor to the immediate west.

i see... i see this great future where the so called 'right' is undistinguishable from the so called 'left' and where Glenn is dancing the blues with Honeybunny Malkin and then the only thing the rest of America has to learn is working for the common good - you know like me - each time

the American side of my brain wants to be greedy and kill, kill, kill but then the European side kicks in and wants to be peaceful and have health insurance for everybody and tells the American side to be modest and reasonable and wise like the big B and then my 'native' side

gets involved and the rage comes back and i want to sent all these poisened blankets to the white men but then most of the time my mother comes in and tells me to do my homework.