The Fanni Mae and Freddy Mac imminent possible collapse is an interesting story and draws clear the battle lines in the War on the middle class. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are guarantors of loans for mortgages. Their presence makes it possible for more mortgages to be underwritten at affordable rates for qualified home buyers. With them gone or seriously impaired, mortgages would be more expensive and housing values would decline. In short, increased Bank power over the ways and means of working class Americans.

A cynic might see the whole sub prime debacle as an attack on the Fannie Mae-Freddy Mac paradigm started under FDR as an aid to get more Americans into their own homes under reasonable terms. A fair question has to be, what benefit is it to the Banks and lenders to see Fanni Mae-Freddy Mac broke and street after street of empty houses across the American landscape? Who are these people, these "bankers" and what possible pleasure can they be getting from all this hardship they have helped spread in the country?

Well team, I've thought about possible F.O.O. jersey "scenerios." If our "shirt rep" visits tonight, maybe she'll be kind enough to post the link again! As far as colors, we could go with navy blue and white (for Keith's beloved Yankees - sorry they're in last place! Start rootin' for the Cubs!), carnelian and white (Cornell's colors - carnelian appears to be a darker shade of red), or, perhaps, purple and white (in "honor" of those purple ties that people love so much!). As far as a jersey number for Mr. Olbermann, we could go with 59 (the year he was born), 67 (the year he saw his first major league baseball game - Yankees & White Sox), 79 (the year he graduated from Cornell after a 28 - credit - hour spring semester. I sure wasn't your academic advisor; WTF were you thinking?!), or 03 (the year of Countdown's debut). I think we should put our DailyKos "names" on the jerseys because that's how Keith knows us if he shows up here to see what kind of shenanigans we're getting into here; I'll take care of Mr. Olbermann's jersey as I'll already pay through the nose for lettering for "CityLightsLover". Just some ideas...feel free to tell me I'm full of $hit should you deem it necessary.

Now, onto tonight's Countdown diary!

A columnist for the automotive section of our local paper has covered some very important ground in the past few weeks, writing the kind of column that will never appear in the news section or on the editorial page where it belongs.  In his two columns written over the course of the past two Sunday papers, he has explored the real reason for the high price of gas, linking it to many other scandals (like the subprime mess), all originating with one crappy piece of monstrous legislation.  I'll quote a few paragraphs, but this one is worth reading in its entirety:

Does it surprise you to discover that the US Senate investigated the rigging of the oil market by speculators in the summer of 2006 – and concluded that there was no supply and demand problem with oil? Did you know that their conclusion was that speculators were responsible for a 70 percent overcharge in the price of oil in the months leading up to the summer of 2006?

Follow me below the break for more...

Protect Colorado's Future, a progressive group in Colorado,
kicked off 2 ballot drives yesterday at the state Capitol.  One of the initiatives could become a model for other states seeking to end Corporate abuses. This initiative is called the Corporate Fraud  initiave and has the support of 8 out of 10 Coloradoans polled.

It is designed to legally stop the kind of Executive fraud that brings to mind people like Ken Lay or Joe Nacchio, and others who made a fortune by engaging in illegal practices such as robbing the pensions of employees or overstating the budget or illegal stock sell offs.
No more CEOs laughing all the way to the bank while the workers are stuck with no job or no retirement.
The other initiative is to secure employees' jobs by ensuring that their employer has a reasonable cause to terminate employment. This ballot iniative is the Just Cause iniative and has lots of public support.
From the site...

Jerome "One Trick Pony" Armstrong’s duplicity and dishonesty know no bounds even after settling his fraudulent SEC Stock-Tout Suit he still has not changed as shown by his disingenuous dairy insulting Oprah without disclosing that he has a dog in the fight. Sounds familiar? Yes. Follow me because there is no difference between Jerome Armstrong, Kenny Boy and his cabal

On Tuesday, November 20th, President Bush revealed the identity of the National Thanksgiving Turkey, which in keeping with the annual White House tradition, will receive a presidential pardon.  But according to well placed White House sources, the jailbird this year was selected months ago and is known internally by his code-name "Scooter."

Republican politics in the 21st century involves telling and selling stories.

But to keep control of the narrative on lots and lots of issues where Republican positions just don't mesh with the facts, Republicans have to tell lots and lots of stories.  So, instead of creating a brand new story from scratch every single time, they often rely on formulas, similar to those that 19th century fairy tale writers might have used to churn out lots and lots of stories. I'll identify one such formula and give you an example of how it is used, after the fold.

It was a time when chaos reigned:

Hospital emergency rooms had to close in some areas and others had to switch to emergency generators. In Silicon Valley, firms like Apple and Hewlett Packard lost their power and in San Francisco, people were trapped in lifts, and businesses closed early ...

The governor finally declared a State of Emergency.  

This was January of 2001.  Bush had just been "made" President, and his buddies were starting to terrorize the people of California into paying billions and billions of dollars into their pockets.  

It was the biggest case of extortion and blackmail that I have ever seen, and I would challenge anyone else to find a bigger one.

Oh yeah -- and people died because of it.  

Two of the perps were just sentenced yesterday.  What kind of justice did they receive?  Why probation of course!

If anyone else had done this, it would have been labelled TERRORISM.  But Republicans did it, so .... well, so what?  A slap on the wrist and life goes on.  

I was just on CNN and looked at their top stories list. CNN top 10 stories

Is it just me or were the choices a little fluffy? Yes, the Tainted Spinach was important but was it the top 10? Or even the Top 20? Or the Trans-Atlantic Terror Plot earth shaking? Come on, for crying out loud, bottles of water are a threat? Who has been convicted and has the bomb actually been proven to be lethal? How about the 7 guys in Florida(or was it 6) who wanted to blow up the Sears Tower AFTER they got their uniforms and boots? These are not really top stories are they?

More on the flip...

2006 is rapidly coming to a close -- a year filled with ups (November 7) and a year filled with downs (more soldiers have died in Iraq than people at the WTC).

There are so MANY moments to remember --- Pelosi and Emmanuel dancing to victory --- but i put down my top moments of 2006

I am curious to see what you all think were the seminal moments of 2006...

MSNBC is reporting...

>>>...And so the corruption pyramid collapses. More as soon as I have it..<<<</p>

Updated: 6:37 p.m. ET Dec 12, 2006
HOUSTON - A federal appellate court denied former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling’s request to remain free during his appeal Tuesday and ordered him imprisoned immediately.

>>>Anyone want to bet it is not the LAST of BUSHco, Inc to see the slammer???<<<<<</p>

Apparently Enron's golden parachute for Kenny boy included a secret get out of jail free card. More below the fault line...

24 years and 4 months in prison?!? There is no way that, in that short a time, Skilling will be able to take it up the ass as many times as he gave it in the ass to thousands of people with his "accounting tricks and shady business deals that led to the loss of thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in Enron stock and more than $2 billion in employee pension plans after the company imploded in 2001."

Not to mention, Skilling can get 54 days a year reduced from his sentence for "good behavior" (something the man certainly seems incapable of). Jeffrey was also ordered to undergo alcohol and mental-health counseling. If he does so, a year's automatically dropped from his sentence -- sort of like a "Get out of Jail Free" card.

What's the deal with everyone who does anything wrong these days claiming they had problems with alcoholism? From Mel Gibson to that creepy predator/pedophile Republican Representative that just got his ass busted, thanks to transcripts where he chatted with underage male interns about how hard he was and wondered if he made the kids "horny" (sort of like a really twisted Austin Powers).

What the H#$$?

From NYT:

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the former Enron executive, who died of heart failure in July while on vacation in Colorado.

Judge Simeon T. Lake III ruled that the conviction must be voided because Mr. Lay cannot pursue an appeal his guilty verdict.

The decision, which had been expected, prevents the government from trying to seize more than $43.5 million from Mr. Lay's estate that prosecutors claimed he stole from Enron before it collapsed in 2001.more

Jeffry Skilling said to be considering a possible "Offshore Death" to overturn his conviction


Houston, Texas (APE) - Lawyers for convicted Enron felon Jeffrey Skilling admitted today that rather than pursue a long drawn out appeal, he was considering death as an option to avoid further prosecution and civil charges over his role in the collapse of Enron. They stated that Skilling had taken into consideration the best interests of himself and his family after witnessing the dismissal of charges today against fellow convicted conspirator and former boss Kenneth Lay following his untimely death on vacation in Colorado.

Local authorities were not put on a suicide watch as lawyers assured them that Skilling was simply considering an offshore death declaration for tax and legal purposes.

I want to give people a "heads up" on a piece of business news I came across quite accidentally today when looking for articles on the effects of Hurricane Ernesto not hitting the oil rigs in the Gulf. Some names on these pages cause alarm bells to ring. This report would keep a team of campanologists in business for a week.

The report concerns a $22 billion take-over of Kinder Morgan. This company, among other things, runs some 43,000 miles of pipelines carrying mostly oil and gas. The deal would take it  from a publically quoted company to a private one, owned by a collection of individuals and organisations with connections to George Bush and with histories of somewhat dubious dealings.  

These e-mails show that, during the California Energy Crisis, Arnold:
1.    Met with Ken Lay.
2.    Was lobbied to end the investigation into Enron.
3.    Agreed with Ken Lay's solutions.

To find these emails for yourselves,
1.    Go to http://fercic.aspensys.com/... and sign in
2.    Bubble the "Enron Email (.pst)" option and click "open selected database."
3.    The names of the 2 emails to search for are "CEO meeting update" and "Materials Ken Lay Used." Also, click on the attachments links in the emails.

Karen Denne was the Vice President of Public Relations for Enron. Jeff Dasovich was Enron's Director for State Government Affairs. Arnold didn't sign the letter because days after the meeting, a sf gate article came out exposing the meeting.   I don't know how to bold so I'll capitalize all the important parts.  

I'm a 22 year old male studying political science. I only became interested in politics during the Clinton administration, but boy does that seem like a distant memory. I remember lots of things from those days: specifically, there not being a dark cloud of doom hanging over everyone, unless you are sitting on top of a huge mound of cash. I remember a past that looks like flowers and roses now, all things considered.

More on the flip...