Economic bail-out bill passes, but why
What happened? Did I miss something? There was an overwhelming objection in the U.S.A. to the economic bailout. Congressmen and Senators' offices were overwhelmed with e-mails urging their elected officials to vote no. By one count, the opinions were running 10 to 1 against. The bill failed once, but went back to the House and Senate again with enough additional pork that they passed it. Enough house members changed their mind to pass it including my own congressman, Neil Abercrombie. Why?
Representative Brad Sherman - D-California, 27th District - Sherman Oaks and Northridge brought to the House floor some disturbing information. Was he exaggerating or misrepresenting the facts? Visions of Hillary Clinton running from an airplane under sniper fire, Mitt Romney's father marching with Martin Luther King, and Mike Huckaby receiving a Ph.D. all pass through my head. If not, clearly this needs to be investigated. I'm an idealist, I know, but pressure to vote one way or another MUST only come from the people that elected that person in the first place. Here is the transcript of Rep. Sherman's speech (taken from C-SPAN's archives.)
"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atomosphere is not justifed. Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop 2 or 3 thousand points the first day and another couple of thousand the second day. And a few members were even told there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That is what I call fear mongering. Unjustified. Proven wrong. We have got a week, we have got two weeks to write a good bill. The only way to pass a bad bill is to keep the panic pressure on."
Interestingly, I could not find this an ANY news sites other than the OpEdNews site.
Labels: Politics
posted by Jim McBee @ 5:06 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
So yet again we give money we don't have to people who don't need it.
I am also confused. Our government truly does not represent the people. The mass media made it sound like the stock market would decline drastically if the bailout wasn't passed. It failed in the House and the market recovered 2/3 of what it had lost earlier in the week. Then the House and Senate pass the bailout and the DOW has dropped below 10,000 for the first time in 4 years. A drop of approx. 1000 over the last 2 days. I don't understand how a congress with an approval rating below 20% thinks they don't need to listen to us. I'm tired of our politicians bankrupting our country. The Democrats tax and spend and the Republicans borrow and spend. I blame all of Washington for causing this problem and then ripping us off to bailout the companies that so many of them own stock in.
I live in Honolulu now too and didn't realize that our Congressman voted for the "bailout" the second time around. I knew he voted against it the first time, I sent him an email in support of that, and then just assumed he wouldn't pull a switch-a-roo.
I was wrong. I know who I'm not voting for (if it even matters anymore).
Self - It's Time to Stand Up for Yourself
Every market in the world is now suffering. $700 billion has disappeared and accomplished nothing. The Fed is getting ready to create and loan another $900 billion to banks and we and our children will pay for it through the inflation that it will cause. We cannot allow this to continue. We cannot continue to elect the same people and expect them to make things better when they have already proven that they will not.
Millions of Americans called in and sent emails telling their Congress members and Senators not to vote for the bailout, but these public servants ignored the people that they are supposed to be working for and voted for the bill anyway. How can American citizens continue to put up with this?
The elections are less than a month away and, instead of the fear that they have tried to instill in us, what we need is a good old-fashioned dose of American anger at the poles. We won’t change things by doing the same thing over and over and the solution is going to come by exploring a path that we haven’t been down before. Nothing that we have done before has fixed this. It’s only made things worse. It is time for real change, not the phony change that politicians have been promising for over a hundred years as things continue to worsen.
If you have someone working for you and they refuse to do what you tell them and only do the things that you told them not to do, you fire them. Now is the time to get rid of the 263 Congress members and 74 Senators who ignored you and voted for this bill. Don’t wait until they make things worse. We need to send the message that legislators work for us and not Wall Street. We really don’t have the time to wait and see what’s going to happen. It has happened and it’s only going to get worse unless we make some changes. We owe it to ourselves and our children not to wait another 2 or 4 years.
The reality is that we won’t get all of these people fired, but there are several Senators who voted "yes" who are in tight races, and more who are vulnerable. Things in Congress are better. There are over a dozen Congress members who are in vulnerable races, where just a little bit of effort will make the difference. If we get mad enough, a number of Senators are subject to recall in 18 states that allow it. We can send a clear message that we won’t tolerate this foolishness any more.
There is a new grass roots movement of concerned citizens, called the Constituent Response Team, forming to help and co-ordinate these efforts. You can make a difference by signing up and helping. You can contact them at constituentresponse@gmail.com and volunteer to write letters, post to forums, and hang door hangers. If you have special skills like graphic/ad design, copy writing, or political analysis, they want you. If you have money to donate, so much the better!
The Constituent Response Team hopes to target the vulnerable public servants who have ignored our wishes with print and radio ads and replace them with a few good people who know who they work for. If we get only 10% of these Congress members and 15 Senators replaced it will change the attitude of the rest and all of them will begin to listen. We can easily accomplish this in the time left.
There’s not a lot of time left before the election so, there won’t be a lot of talking. There will just be a lot of doing. If you are ready to do something to help your country, your children, and yourself, all you have to do is get started. A month out of your life will make all the difference in the entire world for generations to come.
Donate your time and a little money if you have it. We need to get rolling now.
Take control of your future by contacting the Constituent Response team at constituentresponse@gmail.com.
Stand up with other Americans just like you who are already standing for their country.
Please feel free to post this in as many places as you wish.
QUOTE: "Interestingly, I could not find this an ANY news sites other than the OpEdNews site."
And yet, there it is, posted on C-span (video and transcript), in the Congressional Register, and uploaded to YouTube. It's not even disputable that Sherman made the claim. So, why did not a single U.S. media organization investigate such an alarming claim? (Or did they, and Google merely hasn't indexed it?) Do we really have a free press?
BTW, several international media groups did cover the story.
I just got off the phone with a GOP rep representing wall st!! not main st. I earge everyone who was against the first bail out of wall st and failing banks to call eric cantor's phone number and complain against this totally partisan stand against the middle class. It didn't take Cantor and other republican congressmen to vote for wall st. The american people spoke in Nov. 2008 and the vote was for something to be done not more of the insane nothing by bush and company. Just so you are all aware the provision in the first bail out of wall st said we don't need to know where the money is going!!! Go figure!! Where did it go?? To upper management on bonuses trips superbowl parties renovated offices and so on and so on. This is not FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE!! And to all republicans government and voters you are UNAMERICAN for not going along with President Obama. All of you are in big business and congress still in your pockets!! Enough is enough!! I will be working hard to defeat all republicans running in 2012
rich
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