Wonkette

The Dow Jones fell 679 points today, since it’s been a full six days since Paulson last introduced a new multi-hundred billion dollar loan or loan guarantee program, and everyone on Wall Street is a child: “The day’s news reminded investors, who last week were buying on a burst of optimism, that the economy is still in serious trouble. And at midday, Wall Street had confirmation of what everyone has suspected for months, that the nation is indeed in a recession.” They just wanted to be sure, for the 80th time, that the economy was indeed contracting, and then it was SELL SELL SELL. MORE »

Your country, the United States, comes closer and closer to the brink of complete economic and militaristic (but mostly economic these days!) ruination with every passing second. Oh, don’t blame yourself, dear reader. Blame the government — yeah, you know the one! Because, due to a confluence of distant inaugurations, inept lame ducks and quietly ambitious second-tier Washington officials, we’ve got one foot in the Great New Depression II with the other about to step in… and yet we have no idea who is actually running the country! By our count, we have three (3) presidents right now, and they’re all just going around doing their own things while your money is literally dying. So which president, pray tell, is the REAL president right now? MORE »

Whoa hey… whoa… what the hell? “The United States government unveiled $800 billion worth of new loans and debt purchases on Tuesday, hoping another massive infusion of cash would smooth troubled credit markets and make borrowing easier for homebuyers, small businesses and students.” Ha ha, it’s like the original TARP, but for consumers and eggheads — and this time, to hell with the Congressional “funding approval”! It’s much easier for Hank Paulson to drag his ass to a podium some random Tuesday morning and just start stone cold announcin’ the motherfucker. MORE »

Sexy Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former Goldman Sachs investor Hank Paulson selected to run the so-far embarrassing $700 billion bailout program, went before a House committee today to be brutally excoriated, roasted on a spit, and then sodomized by the giddy Elf King Dennis Kucinich and his snarling band of blood monsters. The highlight, and an instant Congressional Hearings Classic, came from Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland: “Mr. Kashkari, in the neighborhood I grew up in, in the inner city of Baltimore, one of the things that you tried to do was make sure that you were not considered a chump … Well, is Kashkari a chump?” [YouTube, HuffPo]

A thing that sucks about our nation’s current financial unpleasantness is that Congress wants to find solutions to it and Congress happens to suck. Other people who suck in this situation include Hank Paulson and “President” George Bush Jr. Barack Obama, too, for throwing himself into this situation that can only end in a sucky outcome. And lest we forget, the American auto industry — known by its appropriately sucky metonym, “Detroit” — sucks. So. Do we give car companies money for sucking or do we let a ton of workers in depressed areas lose their jobs and family health care plans? Oh, the wacky situations America finds itself in after ignoring massive problems for decades. MORE »

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced a major shift today in the Troubled Asset Release Program (TARP!) — or, as the kids call it, “n00bama bailout $ocialism” — and we do not necessarily know to what the shift is. We know from what Hanky is shifting away, though, and that is the plan to buy toxic mortgage-related assets from financial institutions so as to loosen credit and save America. You may recall this instrument Hank is now abandoning: it was the whole point of the bailout, the thing Hank and his chum Ben Bernanke DEMANDED Congress pass within 20 minutes or the child would die. MORE »

Whoa what is going on here, the wacky bailout bill has somehow passed in the House of Representatives by two million votes, 263-171. Take that, uh, China!…?? Many House Republicans switched from “no” to “yes” because they thought they were voting on a measure legalizing gay sex with pages. Now the bill will be driven in a fat cat limousine down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, where George Bush is currently naked and expecting it. A Rose Garden signing ceremony is also expected, during which Hank Paulson will personally light on fire a pyre of $700 billion. But don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing! The Dow Jones has dropped several hundred points since the good news came out. [NYT]

• Last night the White House & Friends finalized Paulson’s $700 billion bailout plan. It’s a lot better than the original version, because both sides made Important Sacrifices. [Wall Street Journal]
• Oh hooray, the House is voting today on Paulson’s Famous Bailout Plan, with the Senate voting maybe as soon as Wednesday, and people for the most part think it’s going to pass. But still, all taxpayers in America hate Hank Paulson and his stupid plan. [Washington Post]
• Obama and McCain are pretending they’re fine with the plan, but Obama says he was holed up with Paulson in a bailout shelter filled with calculators for days while McCain was just pretended to do this thing. [AP]
• Thanks to the vagueness of his new Plan, Demigod of the Treasury Hank Paulson now has unseemly amounts of power, more so than every other financier, ever. [Los Angeles Times]
• Citigroup and Wells Fargo are said to be in competition over Wachovia, which is failing and up for grabs. [Reuters]
• Bombs killed 34 in Baghdad on Sunday, making it the bloodiest day in the city this Ramadan. [CNN]

* Have ridiculous political views? Dying for attention? Don’t waste time starting a blog — call C-SPAN and loudly hurl insults at Jimmy Carter. [Think Progress]
* Brooklyn hipsters who spot Barbara Bush out drinking can’t decide between whether to “vomit on” or “hate fuck” her. [Williamsboard]
* Giant pink house conspires with illegal Guatemalans to keep Mitt Romney out of giant White House. [DCeiver]
* Bloggers who post their “enemies list” — including recently elected members of Congress who haven’t had a day on the job yet — need to switch to decaf. [The Blogometer]
* The Corner bloggers’ had the delusional idea that Rick Santorum will replace Bolton. [The Corner]
* Hank Paulson: administration coffin nailer. [Robert Reich]

• The proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag burning falls one vote short in the Senate. [WP; NYT; LAT]

• Israel sends ground forces into Gaza and executes air strikes on bridges, in an effort to rescue a kindapped soldier. [WP; NYT]
• Bush again urges the Senate to give him line-item veto power. [WP; NYT]
• Bush’s “signing statements” are criticized by lawmakers and scholars at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. [WP; NYT]
• At his confirmation hearing, Hank Paulson, Bush’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, declines to give details about Bush economic policy goals. [NYT]
• New report by Surgeon General Richard Carmona stresses the dangers of secondhand smoke. [WP; NYT; LAT]

We tend to think of Cabinet officials as “goody two-shoes” types. People who never got into trouble when they were kids — like that piano-playing, figure-skating prodigy, Condoleezza Rice. (And no, we don’t believe the latest rumors about her.) MORE »