• How Wall Street Can Bail Itself Out Without Destroying The Dollar


• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont.


• Guest: Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films. "John McCain's Health Records Must Be Released".


• Should Barack Obama use sound bites?


• What does Sarah Palin think the bailout is about? And what enhances her foreign policy credentials?

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Friday 26 September '08 show

• Article: How Wall Street Can Bail Itself Out Without Destroying The Dollar by Thom Hartmann, September 26, 2008.
  
• Clip:
  "More and more people own their homes in America today. Two-thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because few than half of the Hispanics and half the African Americans own the home. That's a homeownership gap. It's a -- it's a gap that we've got to work together to close for the good of our country, for the sake of a more hopeful future. We've got to work to knock down the barriers that have created a homeownership gap.
  
  I set an ambitious goal. It's one that I believe we can achieve. It's a clear goal, that by the end of this decade we'll increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families...
  
  Freddie Mae -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- I see the heads who are here; I want to thank you all for coming -- (laughter) -- have committed to provide more money for lenders. They've committed to help meet the shortage of capital available for minority home buyers...
  
  Freddie Mac recently began 25 initiatives around the country to dismantle barriers and create greater opportunities for homeownership. One of the programs is designed to help deserving families who have bad credit histories to qualify for homeownership loans. Freddie Mac is also working with the Department of Defense to promote construction and financing for housing for men and women in the military. "
  President Hosts Conference on Minority Homeownership, October 15, 2002.
  
• Clip: There's No Need To Fear, Underdog is here!.
  
• Quote: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist, May 25, 2001, to National Public Radio's Mara Liasson.
  
• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont. Thom's article. 37,000 have signed Bernie's letter to Paulson. You can still add your name. The top 400 in America have seen an increase of $670 billion in wealth under Bush. Paulson got huge bonuses, and is asking us to give him more. "Too big to fail", but individuals, families, small businesses can fail. The Bank of America just took over Countrywide and Merrill Lynch - will it be too big to fail next? Bush home ownership speech. Many who got subprime mortgages qualified for ordinary mortgages. Responsibility. Why bail them out? $39 billion in bonuses in one year from the top 5. "Underdog is here". McCain's campaign is in trouble. He acts impetuously. Grandstanding. Obama does not go as far as Bernie would like, but will start in the right direction, and movements may push him. The difference between the two is day and night.
  
  The Democratic leadership basically embraced the bailout, urgency. Bernie has been pointing this out. DeFazio proposing a stock transfer tax. It's happening exactly as Bernie predicted on Tuesday's show. Bernie will be on the floor today reading emails, hopefully. Public outcry. Complicated issue. James suggested calling it the Grover Norquist plan. Tie it to repealing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act? Surcharge for the wealthy, increasing from 35 to 45%, going back to Carter levels. What happened to all the money that Wall Street made? Top 1% earn more money than the bottom 50% and own more wealth than the bottom 90%, and the gap is widening. Some disappeared when the stock market fell. And some went offshore. The greed religion culture. Companies like Halliburton leaving the country to avoid taxes. Bailing out Wall Street is the wrong way.
  
• Bumper Music: Business As Usual, Eagles.
  
• Bumper Music: I like it like that, Dave Clark Five (video).
  
• Bumper Music: We Deal in Dreams, Live.
  
• McCain has decided to participate in the debate after all.
  
• Article: Over 2,200 Doctors Agree: John McCain Should Release His Medical Records, Brave New Films.
  
• Guest: Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films. "We knew we hit a nerve when Rush, Drudge, and O'Reilly unleashed on us the same day. Then, MSNBC censored the McCain health records ad, a Brave New PAC initiative, due to Bill O'Reilly/Fox's pressure." "John McCain's Health Records Must Be Released". Which kind of melanoma? It isn't always skin. Regressive, recurring. Go to your media, get a doctor to write an op ed. AP said that in February he had another cancer removed. McCain had a meeting with financial people, one of them, possibly Kravis Greenwald has made a film of. Their "war on greed" films. On Sunday hopefully there will be a video about McCain's economy plan.
  
• The McCain campaign accidentally released an ad to the Wall Street Journal this morning, before he even announced that he would be participating, saying McCain had won the debate.
  
• Article: Senator Bernie Sanders: October Surprise.
  "Is the October Surprise this year the economic crisis, and Bush's proposed $700 billion bailout of the billionaires?
  
  The latest Rasmussen poll, conducted Monday September 22nd after the entire weekend of Paulson and the administration carpet-bombing the media, shows that only 25 percent of Americans support using taxpayer dollars to bail out bankers and investment firms, while 44 percent of Americans actively oppose it.
  
  Senator Bernie Sanders suggests we could soon see a Reed-Pelosi-Bush bailout bill, and that this could be the October Surprise, the game-changing event, that ties Barack Obama to George Bush and cuts McCain away from Bush."
  
• Bumper Music: I'm so Glad, Cream.
  
• Article: Huckabee calls McCain