A global economic meltdown has sent auto sales tumbling 32 percent in October alone, which could shake the entire auto industry to its core.

Link

The Obama Test:  Personnel is Policy

Forget the election. With November 4 just days away and Barack Obama positioned to become the nation’s first African American president, the question has begun to turn to: Who gets what?  

While I don’t think we should forget the election just yet, I do agree that “who is going to get what” is a looming question on the minds of many.  

Matt Stoller from OpenLeft made my day with this.

This email is from a lawmaker and it should give you a flavor for what’s going on right now in Congress.

Paulsen and congressional Republicans, or the few that will actually vote for this (most will be unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of their policies), have said that there can’t be any “add ons,” or addition provisions. Fuck that. I don’t really want to trigger a world wide depression (that’s not hyperbole, that’s a distinct possibility), but I’m not voting for a blank check for $700 billion for those mother fuckers.

Nancy said she wanted to include the second “stimulus” package that the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have blocked. I don’t want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few fucking bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible.

Henry Waxman has suggested corporate government reforms, including CEO compensation, as the price for this.  Some members have publicly suggested allowing modification of mortgages in bankruptcy, and the House Judiciary Committee staff is also very interested in that.  That’s a real possibility.  

We may strip out all the gives to industry in the predatory mortgage lending bill that the House passed last November, which hasn’t budged in the Senate, and include that in the bill.  There are other ideas on the table but they are going to be tough to work out before next week.  

I also find myself drawn to provisions that would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling. That is now required of consumers filing bankruptcy to make sure they feel properly humiliated for being head over heels in debt, although most lost control of their finances because of a serious illness in the family. That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me.

I’m open to other ideas, and I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the sons of bitches so I can beat the crap out of them.

The “war hero” candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.  

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or sought to discredit the story that American POWs were left behind is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general’s briefing of the Hanoi politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in 1993. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war’s end as leverage to ensure getting war reparations from Washington, which never came.

Imagine.  1,205 POWs left to rot in the caves and prison camps of Viet Nam while Haliburton bills US tax payers for monogrammed towels.  

(more)  

As the GOP primary battle waged, the wingnuts including Paul Weyrich opposed McCain with all of their holy rightousness and threatened to vote third party.  

Who is Paul Weyrich?

Paul Weyrich, often called the founding father of the conservative movement, cofounded with Edwin Feulner (and a lot of Coors cash) the Heritage Foundation in 1973. He currently is associated with the secretive far-right outfit the Council on National Policy and heads up the Free Congress Foundation, described by Matt Bai of the New York Times Magazine as “an army of well-financed, loyal ideologues, each occupying a place in the power structure and with enough reach to turn ideas into policy. Link

Many conservatives would at least consider his views when voting.  

It is the economy, again, stupid.   Working class families are fearful, but the opportunity for mis-information is high.  

Senator Obama is using the Detroit Labor Day kickoff to emphasize three messages: addressing the needs of working people, the key role unions play in the election, and the role of manufacturing and the auto industry,” Shaiken said. Both the Democratic presidential nominee and Republican rival Sen. John McCain are fighting for union members — a key voting bloc in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other swing states. Link

Obama/Biden and the populist message are on-track.  

Drum Major Institute’s (DMI) first annual survey on the Middle Class and Public Policy reveals that America’s middle-class households are fearful families – overwhelmingly pessimistic about the direction of the country, especially the economy and high gas prices.

Most have little flexibility in their own economic situations and have little if anything left over each month after meeting basic expenses. The middle class is disgruntled with the direction of the country and politicians and see little coming out of Washington that would give them cause for optimism.

Middle-class Americans do know what they want.