ABC News: Government watchdog reports Treasury and Federal Reserve knew bailed-out banks were not healthy

OK. I yield to no one in my extremely low opinion of the intelligence of people in the government, but really . . .

if a company is healthy, why the hell would even the dolts in the government want to bail them out?

(I mean, besides the usual reasons of graft and corruption, that is.)

Question 2: Why in the name of all that's holy would anybody else believe the dolts in government when they say that any industry is healthy (like these banks) -- or they say it's in dire trouble and needs immediate right-the-hell-now reform (like, oh, say health care)?

This is a chilling story. Go and read it, then come back here and tell me government is not big enough and doesn't have enough control over your life, and mine.

This could happen to you. this weekend.

Tomorrow.

Or tonight.

Remember: "Ignorance of the law is not an excuse." In other words, you're expected to know and obey every stricture of the entire corpus of your locality's ordinances, your state's law, the U.S. Code, and all of the regulations published since the beginning of the Republic in the Federal Register.

You've got a lot of reading to do. Get busy. (Void where prohibited by law.)

On the round table on NBC's "Meet The Press":

MS. MADDOW: I think it's--I think we always lament the sharpness of our partisan divide. I don't think there's ever been a time where we felt very "Kumbaya" for the--as, as left and right, except for bad reasons, because the country was facing real adversity. And I think that the left/right fight is healthy. I mean, I, as a, as a liberal, I want conservatives and the Republican Party to be robust and, and participating in a, in a strong argument that, that advances the country's interests. I'm not hoping for the demise of my enemies. I do think that we've got vituperative language, language on both sides, and I think it should be damned on both sides.
. . .
MS. MADDOW: I, I do think that there's a little bit of reckoning that needs to happen on the right for Sarah Palin's success. I mean, she was the vice presidential nominee, she is going to sell a kazillion books and she is the biggest brand name in Republican politics still right now. And she's chose--the person who's writing her book, her last--the last person who she co-authored a book with was called "Donkey Cons" and it was co-authored with a guy who's widely believed to be and I believe him to be a white supremacist. So she's chosen Lynn Vincent, who's written a book with a white supremacist, to write her book, and she's the biggest name in Republican politics.

Uh. OK, Rachel. You say you oppose "vituperative language" but in nearly the next breath on the very same TV show go way, way out of your way to accuse Sarah Palin of being a "white supremacist" by the most tenuous (and by the way quite possibly defamatory) guilt-by-association.

Whatever.

I assume for Maddow's next circus act she'll be "damning" herself.

By the way, Maddow's unnamed "white supremacist" is none other than Robert Stacy "the Other" McCain.

If that's all they've got on Vincent and McCain and Palin, Maddow and her gang are about to experience their worst nightmare--an energized conservative/libertarian coalition with a charismatic leader who are all sick and tired of the unending innuendos and slanders and lies of Maddow and the rabid left. And I think they know it.

UPDATE: I get a coveted Rule 2 link from The Other himself.

My God, THAT'S why they are afraid of him! He's THE OTHER! AIEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Sioux Falls, South Dakota owes much of its recent explosion of growth to South Dakota's extremely loose usury laws.

Continued after the "read more."

For the children.

For the government.

From Gay Patriot:

1 - A rich, famous brother of a Democrat President who drives drunk off a bridge and murders a young woman who was not his wife: OKAY

2 - A famous Hollywood Director who intoxicates, then rapes a 13 year old girl, confesses to it and then runs from the law for 30 years: OKAY

3 - A Democrat President who sexually harasses an intern under his employ in the Oval Office then lies under oath: OKAY

4 - A Republican Congressman who texts with 17-18 year old boys but never met them: NOT OKAY

5 - A Democrat Senator currently with leadership status who was the elected “Exalted Cyclops” in the Ku Klux Klan and repeatedly used racial slurs on television until he became too old and his words slurred: OKAY

6 - A Republican Congressman who yelled at a President who happens to be African-American: NOT OKAY

7 - A Democrat school teacher, now Presidential “Safe Schools Czar”, who did nothing when a teenager told him of dangerous sex habits with older men: OKAY

8 - A Republican VP candidate whose underage daughter becomes the target of rape jokes by liberal Late Night talk show host: OKAY (and hilarious!)

9 - A liberal Late Night host sexually harassing employees on his staff: ALSO OKAY

Admittedly, there are some who might find such a list from a site called "Gay Patriot" a tad ironic. I don't. Judge accordingly. (Something about "what responsible adults do in the privacy of their own homes . . . ") See, there's "tolerance" and then there's tolerance. There's a difference.

Captain Steve Schmidt of the S.S. 2008 McCain Campaign thinks a Palin 2012 Presidential run might not be such a good idea:

"In the year since the election has ended, she has done nothing to expand her appeal beyond the base. ... Th[e] independent vote is going to be up for grabs in 2012. That middle of the electorate is going to be determinative of the outcome of the elections. I just don't see that if you look at the things she has done over the year ... that she is going to expand that base in the middle."

On the other hand, Schmidt is something of an expert on running disastrously incompetent Presidential campaigns, so I guess he does know what he's talking about there. And we're all quite well aware Schmidt a deep, abiding hatred of Palin, after his campaign's woefully inept and ham-fisted handling of her during the election run.

On the other, other hand, the 2012 election is three years and one month away, Steve old boy. Let's talk after Palin's book has been out a while. At this time in 2005, "Barack Obama" was just a punch line of obscure inside-the-Beltway political jokes.

If you say it often enough, it will become true.

The economy is recovering.

The economy is recovering.

The economy is recovering.

National jobless rate inches up to 9.8 percent.

Jobs data send oil prices tumbling

Stocks fall as September jobs report disappoints

Factory orders fall unexpectedly in August

The economy is recovering.

The economy is recovering.

The economy is recovering.

But there is no joy in Onionville--mighty Barry has struck out.

Megan McArdle on 'Cash for Clunkers':

in the aftermath, sales are plummeting:  47% at GM, 44% at Chrysler, 8.9% at Ford, 16% at Toyota, 23% at Honda, 11% at Nissan.  I hope those car companies used the cash infusion now, because they'll be on lean rations for months, even years.

There were economists who tried to tell Congress and the President that 'Cash for Clunkers' was a bad idea. They were ignored.

Now, and in the months and years ahead, we'll see exactly how much it really cost us.

This is what they call a "successful government program."

If this is success, do any of us really want to see what failure looks like?