how about (0.00 / 0)

on the day of the TARP2 vote every one who drives to work gets on the main highway ringing their city and drives at 20 miles an hour, there by devastating 'normal' business operations for the day across America.

oh, but i forgot, online petitions are so easy and I don't really have to do anything.

~* the * Will * to go on *~

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by: ObscureName @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 16:38:41 PM CST

What will such accomplish (0.00 / 0)

that an on-line petition will not?  (besides buting up gasoline, that is)

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Thu Jan 15, 2009 at 10:53:00 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Sorry, David... (4.00 / 1)

I'm not going to hamstring our new president from fixing the economy...  That money is a goldmine of stimulus, and the political price has already been paid for it... Obama can use it how he wishes, and doesn't have to deal with Republican obstructionism.  You can't ask for anything better!

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 16:58:59 PM CST

Bow down to the Dear Leader (4.00 / 1)

Yes, that's what Congress should do - simply give the Dear Leader total power to keep handing out blank checks to Wall Street, and not do its constitutional due diligence of oversight, guaranteeing transparency, etc.

Sounds like a great democracy you want us to live in.

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by: David Sirota @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 17:19:58 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I expect very little of that money to go to wall street... (4.00 / 1)

That is why I don't want this opportunity thrown away... I think a lot of good can, and will, be done with the money, which is why I support it's allocation.

If you want to put a bunch more strings on it... OK... but, I am going to have faith that a Democrat will put the money to good use and make sure everyone knows where, how, and why..

Hey, I could be wrong... but, I'm going to make a leap of faith here... Obama's political future depends on him doing this right, so I think, if anything, self interest will force him to do the right thing here...

I think you may be surprised at the outcome... or I will... either way, I'm going to give Obama the benefit of the doubt for now...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 18:20:14 PM CST

[ Parent ]

David, (0.00 / 0)

I trust Obama way more than I trust you. You do not speak for all progressives and you can just quit with the incendiary rhetoric (Dear leader)

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by: sofine @ Thu Jan 15, 2009 at 07:30:48 AM CST

[ Parent ]

asdf (0.00 / 0)

you really have no idea who runs this country, do you?

~* the * Will * to go on *~

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by: ObscureName @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 17:31:52 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I thought it was these guys... (0.00 / 0)

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 18:23:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]

so then (0.00 / 0)

why would you trust obama on nothing more than a six letter word?

~* the * Will * to go on *~

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by: ObscureName @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 21:54:32 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Tom Geoghagen is a great progressive (4.00 / 2)

I wrote the whole disquisition in itlaics  because originally the write up made it appear the tom was asking that NO MONEY BE RELEASED A ALL. Then I attually I read his exact words in the petition....which is not the same thing. What he is calling for, instead, is to put conditions and oversight onto the second round of TARP funs....not no funds at all. Though he could have been clearer, ambiguity may otr may not have been deliberate.

So while the specific conditions and oversight in Barney Frank's bill may not exactly encompass Tom's proposal, in spirit it is the same.  Except both Frank and Dodd seem to think that because we have a Democrat in the white House oversight and conditions are no longer needed.  I heartily agree with Tom that they very much ARE needed.

Here are the words of the petition

We call on Congress to reject President Bush's request for another $350 billion blank check bailout. The Congress must follow their constitutional role and provide guidelines and restrictions on any money given to banks and Wall Street. These include:

Give priority - directly if possible - to help people keep their homes.
Get public interest representatives or directors on bank boards in all of the banks receiving money.
Penalize any bank that has been hoarding money from the first bailout
In a time of economic hardship, with people losing their jobs, health care, pensions, and homes, Americans need economic security. We need a raise in social security, less debt, and single payer universal health care reform.

We call on the Congress to end the era of blank check bailouts.

I can see why it might have seemed as though he's asking to just reject the request, but as I explain below that is not at all achievable. But what can be done is to pressure the House and the Senate to pass a Barney Frank's bill which does put in guidelines and oversight.

The mechanism for releasing TARP funds has been rigged in such a way that this can never, ever prevail.
Asking Congress NOT TO RELEASE them is worse than tilting at windmills, it's nigh undoable, and in the meantime you may give up the ability to control how the TARP funds are disbursed.  Why?

Bush pulled the trigger yesterday, there are 15 days in which Congress can vote NO which does not allow the funds to be released...so of course that requires a majority in the House and either a majority in the Senate or enough votes for cloture, 51 0r 59?  Say miraculously you get those votes...TARP lost in 2008 but with more Republicans in the House and recalcitrant Dems refusing to heed Bush's call. They didn't trust him, rightly so. However this is a big Dem majority House and Senate and by the end of the 15 days Barack Obama will be president.  THIS REFUSAL TO RELASE FUNDS MUST BE SIGNED BY THE PRESIDENT. OBAMA HAS ALREADY SAID HE WOULD VETO THE REFUSAL. This then requires 2/3 of the House to override the brand new, enormously popular president's veto, 290 votes in the House and 66 or 67 in the Senate.  Hell would freeze over first.

So it seems that in this case one should go for what is actually doable

Pressure Barney Frank and the Dodd in the Senate to pass their own bills.  And not to behave like the Republicans did under Bush, when they never subjected Bush, their president to any guidance or scrutiny.  We should not fall into the same category because we now have our Democratic president.  
From TPM

Before acceding to Barack Obama's request for another $350 billion of financial bailout money, the House is set to take up a bill from Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) that would require some cash to be spent on foreclosure aid and set limits on executive compensation. But Frank's counterpart in the Senate, Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT), has suggested that yesterday's non-specific letter from Obama adviser Larry Summers might be enough to convince him that the incoming administration plans to spend the taxpayers' money more wisely.

And even Frank (before HuffPo reported it) has already shown his unquestioning faith in the Obama team. Here's what he said Friday while introducing his own bill to provide oversight of the second $350 billion:

[II]t doesn't have to be enacted. It would be helpful if it was. But if the bill passes the House with a large majority, and we have smart and cooperative people in this administration, I'm willing to accept their word that they will act as if it were the law.

Now to my question. How would progressives react if these were Republican lawmakers agreeing to take the word of John McCain -- or any Republican president succeeding George W. Bush? Would the response be universal alarm at Congress failing to exert even minimal oversight powers? Remember how much agita this remark caused?

Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like ... I will take the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a UN resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible

That was Hillary Clinton in October 2002, before the vote to authorize the Iraq war

This is not how a representative democracy is supposed to work.  Cooperation is one thing, but abrogating your own power and giving up your own responsibilty to the public is a dereliction of their congressional duty.

So I am glad that Tom Geoghaghan is asking Congress to do their job and act resposnibly by putting conditions on the release of the money...because progressive leaders go after the difficult but doable, not the impossible.

 

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

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by: debcoop @ Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 17:06:02 PM CST

As a Detroiter who watched them waterboard the autos, (0.00 / 0)

I absolutely expect WS banks to have the exact same strings including a ban on jets.  Where was the Kansas objection to the jet objection when Detroit was there?  

I absolutely want strings.  My retirement savings has lost 25%.  I would have been better off to have thrown it out a window - or bought a jet.  Well, maybe a jet wing.   At least, I would have gotten something for it.

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  

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by: dkmich @ Thu Jan 15, 2009 at 04:38:05 AM CST