Hey Nation Of Whiners, Whine About This

NY TIMES: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares fell again Friday — and the broader stock market followed suit — as concern mounted that the government will be forced to take over the beleaguered mortgage finance companies, which some investors fear are at risk of default.

That's right, whiners. The government may have to take over the two largest mortgage finance banks and pass the cost on to us to the tune of a current $11 billion and perhaps into the trillions. But don't worry. What are you bitching and griping about? It's only in your head. This is imaginary. It's all psychological. Cry-babies. Why are you ruining it for the millionaires?

Hillary "Goldilocks" Clinton

“Sometimes I feel like the Goldilocks of this campaign, not too much, not too little, just right. And I think we should have a gas tax holiday and pay for it."

Yay! Holiday! Woohoo! Will it be a federal paid holiday? Will we be off from work?... No?... What? Oh... it's not a "holiday"? What the fuck?! Is Clinton giving us a holiday or not?

Well if by "holiday" the Clinton campaign means suspending the gasoline tax for three months and losing 300,000 highway construction jobs and $9 billion in highway trust fund revenue in the process, only to jack up the tax again after Labor Day, which will be called a "tax hike" by Republicans and blamed on the Democrats, then... yes.

But don't worry, she's proposing a "windfall profit tax" to offset those lost monies, even though a windfall profit tax has already been brought up by Sen. Byron Dorgan and has died in Congress (surprise, surprise...), and even though she's already spent that money by saying revenues from a windfall profit tax would be used on researching and developing renewable energy.

Good job, Golidocks.

Superdelegate Joe Andrew Flips To Obama!

Here comes the avalanche! Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew of Indiana has flipped his endorsement of Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama.

"This has got to come to an end," former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew told reporters in his hometown of Indianapolis just days before Tuesday's crucial state primary. He said he planned to call all the other superdelegates he knows and encourage them to back Obama.

...In a lengthy letter explaining his decision, Andrew said he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."

"The ship is taking on water right now," Andrew said at the news conference. "We need to patch those holes, heal the rift and go forward to beat John McCain."

...Andrew said the Obama campaign never asked him to switch his support, but he decided to do so after watching Obama's handling of two issues in recent days. He said Obama took the principled stand in opposing a summer gas tax holiday that both Clinton and McCain supported, even though it would have been easier politically to back it. And he said he was impressed with Obama's handling of the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

..."He has shown such mettle under fire," Andrew said in the interview. "The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party."

That's what I'm talking about! A Democrat with... how shall I put it... "testicular fortitude."

She's One Of Us!

Because she pumps gas! Or maybe not...

...The Clinton campaign arranged for Mrs. Clinton to “commute” with a sheet-metal worker on his way to work; she rode shotgun in a white Ford pick-up truck and to stop by the gas station to fret over the cost of filling up.

No shock, but David O. Selznick could not have staged the thing better.

The Marathon gas station was effectively closed to other customers for more than an hour as 30 reporters and photographers gathered at the station to await Mrs. Clinton’s visit. A caravan of 10 vehicles – 10! – finally arrived, including a van carrying cameramen to record the drive, and a white Ford pick-up truck driven by the “commuter,” Jason Allen Wilfing, with Mrs. Clinton in the passenger seat.

And it turned out the pick-up belonged to Mr. Wilfing’s boss; they used it so they could fit a Secret Service agent and Mrs. Clinton’s traveling aide in the back seat.

Reporters speculated beforehand about whether Mrs. Clinton would pump the gas herself, but it was not to be...

...Mrs. Clinton said she had not pumped gas in a long time, given the Secret Service role in her life since 1992.

No elitist here. Oh, no. ...Ooh look, the numbers turn fast!

Surprising that she wouldn't pump her own gas after endorsements describing her as making "Rocky Balboa look like a pansy" and having "testicular fortitude." I shit you not.

Here's her reaction after the comparison to being ballsy.

Of course, it was meant as a compliment. If an opponent had said something like this, well, who knows what the campaign reaction would be or what claim of misogyny they would come up with.

But are we really surprised what comes out of the Clinton campaign anymore? A staged event, making a man drive forty-five minutes out of his normal commute to pick up Clinton at her hotel in a truck that isn't his, only to have her talk on her cell phone the entire length of the trip and then to stop for a fill up at a gas station that's been closed to other customers for security and press reasons (who knows how much money they lost during that time) and then speak to the press about how she knows the hardships of Joe Average even though she hasn't pumped gas for herself in at least the last 16 years if not more.

Yes, she is "in touch" with the average voter. There's always the full service pump, Hill.

Here's Keith's take on it.

McThuslelah's Big Gas Price Solution

Here's the skinny: John McCain is suggesting a gas "tax holiday" between Memorial Day and Labor Day - about 3 months - 13 weeks. I'll do the math for the extreme end of savings. 18.4 cents per gallon multiplied by a 15 gallon tank equals $2.76 per tankful. Assuming you fill up your tank weekly, multiply that by the 13 weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day... that equals $35.88. For a 20 gallon tank, the total savings is $47.84. The savings for a 12 gallon tank is $28.70 or basically less than a tank of gas. Great solution, huh?

Yet McThuselah calls Barack Obama "out of touch" with what poorer, low-income people need because Obama rejects the idea of a tax holiday for two reasons: it does little to ease the strain on the pocketbooks of consumers and it would deplete the highway trust fund by $9 billion and would cost 300,000 highway construction jobs. The man who married a $100 million beer baron heiress - Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, who had been using his wife's private jet for campaigning through a loophole in the rules - thinks he's more in touch with the common folk.

Here's Obama telling the truth himself.

Obama: Half a tank of gas. That's [John McCain's] big solution...this is at the same time he is proposing hundreds of millions of dollars of more tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans...that's typical of how Washington works, there's a problem, everybody's upset about gas prices, let's find some short-term, quick fix so that we can say we did something, even though we're not really doing anything...and then we pretend like we did something. So I'm here to tell you the truth. We could suspend the gas taxes for six months, but that's not going to bring down gas prices long term...we have to go after the oil prices and look at their price gouging, we've got to go after windfall profits...and we have to stop using less oil, that means raising fuel efficiency standards on cars, and developing alternative fuels, that's the real honest answer to how we're gonna solve this problem, that's what you need from a president, someone who's gonna tell you the truth, who's gonna tell you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear.

Who are you going to believe? John McCain or your lying eyes and shrinking wallet?

(H/T Bob Cesca)