Bailout is Law

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Bailout is Law

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: October 3, 2008: 5:52 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — After two weeks of contentious and often emotional debate, the federal government’s far-reaching and historic plan to bail out the nation’s financial system was signed into law by President Bush on Friday afternoon.

“By coming together on this legislation, we have acted boldly to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country,” Bush said less than an hour after the House voted 263 to 171 to pass the bill.

The House vote followed a strong lobbying push by the White House and other supporters of the bill. The House rejected a similar measure on Monday – a defeat that shocked the markets and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle.

The law, which allows the Treasury Secretary to purchase as much as $700 billion in troubled assets in a bid to kick-start lending, ushers in one of the most far-reaching interventions in the economy since the Great Depression.

My only commentary is actually someone else’s:


UPDATE: Donald Sensing elaborates.

UPDATE II: Tom Blumer of PJM elaborates further.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

From yesterday’s Rush Limbaugh Show:

RUSH: Gainesville, Florida. Jeff, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. I hope this call finds you well.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very well.

CALLER: Listen, this is an aside to why I called, but I just wanted you to know that I got an $8,000 loan yesterday to replace the air-conditioning in my home.

RUSH: How much of a down payment did it require?

CALLER: Zero down payment, 6.9% interest.

RUSH: How many years?

CALLER: It will be about four years.

RUSH: Four years to pay for your new air conditioner?

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: Zero down payment. Are you a minority?

CALLER: Not yet.

Quote of the Election Cycle

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Quote of the Election Cycle

The story is old news in the new media. Left-leaning Slate.com called it “a nasty and untrue rumor.” National Review’s Jim Geraghty, who has written exhaustively on the story calls it “unsupported by the facts.” But at the Obama-Uber-Alles Boston Globe, they call it “news.”

We have come to the point in the media’s treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin where even the fig leaf of pretense is gone. The press has openly chosen sides and has stopped apologizing for it. – Michael Graham as quoted at Instapundit.

Only the “stopped apologizing for it” part is new.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

From the personal story of a 9/11 “Security Mom” (h/t SailorCurt), Anti Gun Rights to Pro Gun Rights–My conversion:

The tragedy at Virginia Tech was the final straw. I was not going to be a victim anymore. My children were not going to be victims anymore.

I took my first gun safety class, and I got my first concealed carry permit. Some people may be surprized that I have changed. I am surprized that some of them haven’t.

Can I get an “AMEN!”?

I Almost Forgot

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I Almost Forgot!

In all the excitement over the House defeating the $700,000,000,000 bailout, excuse me, rescue bill, it almost escaped my notice that the same August Body also failed to reauthorize the offshore drilling ban.

The 27 year-old ban is now dead. According to the linked story,

The ban was not a prohibition on drilling per se. Rather, it was a ban on appropriating money for the Interior Department to process of new drilling leases. With the beginning of the new fiscal year, that prohibition will end, once Congress passes a budget resolution that restores the funding. After years of opposition to increasing domestic supplies of energy, a full year of fighting House Republicans on the issue, and a summer of defending itself against a vocal Republican minority and overwhelming public support for increased oil drilling, Congressional Democrats agreed last week to allow the ban to lapse this year.

Drawing as little attention to themselves as possible.

Now the question is, will a Democrat-majority legislature actually appropriate funds so the Interior Department can process new drilling leases? Or, like the funding for the BATF to review appeals to restore firearms rights, will this be a line-item that never makes it into any appropriations bill?

Anybody taking bets?

It Fits All the Available Evidence. . .

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Reader/commenter DJ provided a link to a video interview of Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov from 1985 on the topic of “ideological subversion,” in his words:

To change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite of their balance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.

It’s a great brainwashing process which goes very slow, and it is divided in four basic stages. The first one being demoralization. It takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years it takes to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy.

—

In other words, Marxism-Leninism is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or counterbalanced with the basic values of Americanism, America patriotism.

Not everywhere, obviously, as evidenced by my April 2006 post RCOB™, but equally obviously Nina Burleigh was a victim of such an education, and shocked, shocked that her son wasn’t getting the same in Narrowsburg, NY.

Mr. Bezmenov’s piece is, now 23 years further on, and in the shadow of what could possibly be the next Depression, deeply, coldly frightening – because we did not listen.

Watch the video. Listen.

[dailymotion id=k6ZQSKfqoJClqdlBt1]

Especially this part:

The timebomb is ticking. With every second the disaster is coming closer and closer. Unlike myself you will have nowhere to defect to, unless you want to live in Antarctica with the penguins. This is it. This is the last country of freedom and possibility.