European leaders decided against a joint bailout of the Continent’s financial system, but that hasn’t stopped individual governments from trying to save failing and financially shaky institutions. The German government, which has been highly critical of U.S. economic mismanagement, just backed a $68-billion deal to save one of its biggest banks.
“Americans need to ask themselves if they’ve ever befriended an unrepentant terrorist,” says McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. The AP called similar remarks by running mate Sarah Palin “racially tinged” and Time said the claim was “simply wrong,” but the McCain campaign shows no signs of backing down from its new strategy.
Sarah Palin went into negative campaigning mode on Saturday during a speech in Colorado, apparently attempting to forge associations in voters’ minds between the name Barack Obama and the word terrorist, thus indicating that the McCain campaign is ready to hit the mat—or the muck—during the last four weeks before the election.
With just a month to go before the presidential election, the Obama and McCain campaigns are making some strategy changes in reaction to the seismic shifts that shook the economy over recent weeks. The forecast currently looks better, to some analysts, for Obama than McCain, but McCain’s supporters don’t see it that way.
After clearing the hurdle that was Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, Republican VP hopeful Sarah Palin flipped into damage control mode during an on-screen chat with Fox News’ Carl Cameron on Friday, insinuating that Katie Couric had treated her unfairly in her recent interview with the CBS anchor and—you betcha!—coming up with some answers to two of Couric’s questions that had previously seemed to stump her.
On Friday the House approved, after initially rejecting, the $700-billion bailout package for the financial industry in what is likely to be the most expensive government intervention in the nation’s history. This, of course, only slightly surpasses another notable “government intervention”—the nearly $600 billion spent in the war in Iraq.
Tight credit has put California’s state budget into a bit of a pickle, with funding for the government’s day-to-day operations drying up faster than Sarah Palin’s popularity. A sign of trouble is a letter—leaked Friday—from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that warned of a potential emergency request for a $7-billion loan within the coming weeks.
Leaders from France, Italy, Great Britain and Germany are planning to meet on Saturday in preparation for a European finance summit to be held in Washington next week. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who shot down reports on Thursday that France was proposing a hefty European bailout package, invited the other three heads of state to the pre-summit huddle in Paris.
The Bloomberg news service counts 10 lawmakers who may be ready to switch their votes when the bailout proposal takes another run at the House of Representatives. The original measure failed by only 23 votes and has since been substantially fattened by the Senate.
With several new polls showing Florida breaking for Barack Obama, the state’s GOP leadership convened a secret meeting of top party and campaign officials. Florida GOP Chair Jim Greer, who organized the powwow, said, “It was just to ensure the ship is on its proper course. ...”
Looks like John McCain and his camp have decided to cut bait in Michigan after their efforts to win over voters in the Midwestern state didn’t quite pan out as they’d hoped. Instead, as Politico reports, McCain’s team is focusing on other important states like Florida and Ohio.
And to think that anyone thought James Dobson would sit out this presidential race. The Christian right leader and his advocacy group, Focus on the Family Action, are planning a multistate strategy to help elect McCain, and to prevent Democratic gains in Congress while they’re at it.
Piracy has gotten so bad off the coast of Somalia that the European Union is prepared to form an anti-piracy force to police the region. The unresolved seizure of a freighter loaded with Russian tanks is the most recent in a spate of incidents involving more than 60 vessels and $30 million in ransom so far this year.
Well, that was easy: While the House had to contend with round-the-clock negotiations and a last-minute revolt, the Senate just threw more money at the problem. That was enough for 74 lawmakers to say yes to the $810-billion package. The House will take another crack at it on Friday.
The House couldn’t swallow the $700-billion bailout proposal, so the Senate added about $100 billion of incentives—mostly in the form of tax cuts. The Senate will vote on the proposal tonight and the House could decide as early as Friday whether $700 billion is too much, but $800 billion is just about right.
Private investor/capitalist extraordinaire George Soros has a suggestion for the Treasury Department and Congress—think before you act. Soros goes on to propose an alternative to the existing discretionary bailout plan: a recapitalization of the banking system, injecting “high-powered” equity capital into banks—not a blank check for the culprits.
Continuing investigation of the 2006 firings of nine federal prosecutors has uncovered new leads that directly involve White House staff and lawyers in the scandal. The unsurprising kicker is that Bush administration officials refuse to talk further about their role in the firings, and key documents have been redacted to a level “virtually worthless as an investigative tool.”
While Americans from the president on down were preoccupied with the financial meltdown, the disarmament deal with North Korea was quietly falling apart. Actually, talks with the nuclear hermit state have been on the rocks for some time, and have only grown more complicated since Kim Jong Il went MIA.
The nation’s most powerful labor unions are ratcheting up their efforts to elect Barack Obama with massive voter outreach campaigns. Both SEIU and the AFL-CIO have said this year’s efforts will be their largest voter mobilization campaigns ever.
Despite House Minority Leader John Boehner’s claim, backed up by other Republicans in Congress, that the bailout bill might have passed were it not for meddling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bombastic speech on Monday, others from within GOP ranks beg to differ.
At least 147 people were killed and many more wounded when a wall collapsed at the Chamunda Devi temple in Jodhpur, India, setting off a stampede of devotees there to observe the Hindu Navaratra festival on Tuesday.
John McCain’s bid to put his campaign on hold in order to wing his way to Washington last week was intended to make him seem ready for action in a crisis but may have resulted in a “political dead end” for the Arizona senator after Monday’s bailout bomb, according to the Associated Press.
A campaign source tells the political rag that Joe Biden will avoid roughing up Sarah Palin during the debate Thursday, focusing his energies instead on John McCain. That might have something to do with a new poll, which suggests that most people think Biden will prove to be much more knowledgeable, but much less likeable.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert isn’t exactly popular these days. Forced to resign in disgrace, it may have been with the weight of politics leaving his shoulders that he let loose during an interview with an Israeli newspaper. Among other revelations, Olmert said his country was stuck in a 1948 mind-set and must now give up virtually all contested territory—including Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Tina Fey, in character again as Sarah Palin for last weekend’s “Saturday Night Live,” made light of how the Republican vice presidential candidate was “literally” embraced by “a couple of them Pakistani guys” she met at the United Nations last week. Unfortunately for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, though, the prayer leader of Islamabad’s Red Mosque isn’t laughing about Zardari’s encounter with Palin last Thursday.
Economy Trumps Race in Ohio
