The latest on the bailout package from AP:
Prospects for a $14 billion auto industry rescue bill dimmed Thursday amid growing opposition in both parties and despite urgent appeals by both President-elect Barack Obama and President George W. Bush.Hey, so what if Claire McCaskill and Max Baucus join with the Republicans in sending the US economy into a Depression. They'll have done the principled thing because, as everyone knows, the House and Senate Republicans are always looking out for the people's best interest.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell came out against the legislation — the product of a hard-fought behind-the-scenes compromise between the majority Democrats and the White House. And not even the White House's argument that it was crucial at a time of rising joblessness seemed to restore lost momentum for enactment....
The majority of Senate Democrats were expected to back it, but some were on the fence.
Democratic Sen. Max Baucus is opposing it because of a provision to bail out transit agencies that were involved in transactions now considered unlawful tax shelters.
McCaskill said judges' pay raise, inserted by Reid, "sends the wrong message to the United States of America at this scary moment."
Folks, this is a bill supported by George Bush's White House, for Christ's sake. The House and Senate Republicans are playing politics, just as they always do, as the economy is about to take an even more serious dive. This is when Democrats had better grow a pair of balls and do something, public, fast to tell the American people about exactly what's coming if we let the automakers go bankrupt. I don't like the doom and gloom talk, as I think it generally makes things worse as you freak consumers (and Wall Street) out. But if it means telling folks that we risk plunging the country into a Depression, and if it's true, then tell people, now.
This is what happens when you become a political party with no spine. Bullies stand up to you because they know they can. It's time to show them that they can't, or the next 4 years of the Obama administration are going to be one GOP filibuster after another, just hoping to send us into a greater and greater Depression so that the Republicans can win the Congress and the White House back. That appears to be the GOP plan - send the country into chaos, just as they did when they shut down the government during Clinton's presidency. The Republican party is run by maniacs. It's time to call them on it. Or seriously, there's no reason for Democrats to control the government if they can't learn to lead.
