Here is the text of the bailout proposal President Bush has sent to Congress.

Sent overnight to Congress, President Bush says the risk of doing nothing is greater than the risk posed by the bailout.

The plan would allow the Treasury to buy up mortgage-related assets. The aim is for the government to buy the securities at a discount, hold onto them and then sell them for a profit.

Is he right? According to the experts quoted in the article:

Jeralyn posted Hillary Clinton's great speech on our current financial crisis and I think the most important discussion from that speech was Clinton's championing of the HOLC (Home Owners Loan Corporation) model over the RTC (Resolution Trust Corp.) model. I urge you to watch the speech. In the meantime, hear is a nice post from December 2007 from the Consumer Law and Policy blog on these competing choices, highlighting the Center for American Progress proposal.The post:

Herman Atkins served 12 years before DNA testing showed he didn't commit the rape and robbery that led to his conviction. Atkins considers himself lucky that there was DNA available for new testing in his case. He speaks from the heart when he urges Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign two bills on his desk. One would help prevent wrongful convictions and the other would help the wrongfully convicted.

The first bill, SB 1589, would require corroboration for jailhouse informant testimony. Informants have good reasons to lie: they are getting something in exchange for what they say. Yet, they are persuasive. In fact, informants are the leading cause of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases. We already require corroboration for co-defendant informants; SB 1589 simply extends that same precaution to jailhouse informants.

[more ...]

In these times of financial distress, the New York Times runs a good editorial on the issue of credit card company abuse:

When the Federal Reserve asked for comments on its proposed rules on abusive credit card practices, an astonishing 56,000 poured in. Most were from outraged consumers. They told of interest rates skyrocketing when they paid an unrelated bill late. They complained of unwarranted late fees and pushed-up due dates. One Pennsylvania customer fumed: “I’m fed up with credit card company tricks that drive us deeper in debt.”

This anguished deluge should send a clear message to leaders in Washington. The Federal Reserve should swiftly adopt its proposed rules against unfair or deceptive credit card practices. But the real burden to curb these abuses falls on Congress. For too long, members of Congress have shirked the responsibility to ensure fair lending to credit card customers and have listened more intently to the banking lobbyists.

More...

Only six representatives co-sponsored Barney Franks' sensible bill to end the federal prosecution of marijuana possession for personal use. One of them, Lacy Clay, mistakenly thought it was a medical marijuana bill. Is there now egg on Clay's face? Not at all.

Clay was worried about the reaction. Supporting the liberalization of marijuana laws is not often seen as a political winner, especially in Midwestern cities like St. Louis. But instead of stoner jokes, derision and righteous indignation, Clay was surprised to start getting praise from complete strangers. ...

So far, he said, his calls, mail and contacts are running 80-20 in favor of the bill. He was impressed enough that he decided to go ahead and step before the cameras last week with Frank and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) at a news conference touting the bill.

The prison and law enforcement industries, both of which see marijuana busts as job security, support the war against pot smokers. Many others realize, as Clay has come to believe, that it's a waste of federal resources. [more ...]

Nancy Pelosi is an awful Speaker of the House, imo. You may disagree, but you can not disagree with the fact that she plays fast and loose with the idea that she can block House votes when she wants. To explain away the FISA Capitulation vote and why she let it pass in the House, Pelosi bizarrely blamed the Senate, as if the Senate controlled the House calendar.

But when it comes to offshore oil drilling, Pelosi DOES control the calendar:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday ruled out a vote on new offshore oil drilling even as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he might be open to a compromise that included it.

Somehow she could not rule out a vote on FISA Capitulation. I mean that only involved the Constitution after all. No big deal.

Speaking for me only

A proposed law would empower the federal government to seize your computer if you use it to violate a copyright law by downloading a song or movie for which you didn't pay. Doesn't that penalty seem a bit excessive?

The bill would also empower the federal government to bring civil suits for copyright infringement -- doing what the RIAA now does in its abusive lawsuits against (mostly) college students who download copyrighted music. This seems like the kind of "big government" that conservatives should deplore. If copyright holders feel infringed, they should bring their own lawsuits rather than counting on the government to do it for them. Surely our scarce federal resources are better spent elsewhere -- repairing bridges, building levees, strengthening port security, and doing the countless other things that benefit society as a whole rather than businesses that should spend their own money to protect their own intellectual property.

The bill enjoys the misguided sponsorship of Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy and Evan Bayh. Can't they find something more productive to do with their time?

Remember when the mighty Republican party was accusing Democrats of being obstructionists for using the filibuster and other tools to block the Republican agenda, particularly the confirmation of extremist judges? It's entertaining to see Harry Reid using Republican rhetoric against the opposition party.

Reid has found a way to overcome objections of the chief Senate obstructionist, Tom Coburn, who has blocked scores of popular bills that deserve to be passed. [more ...]

We never know what the future holds, but for the present, Senator Kennedy is still fighting the good fight.

Mr. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, flown in virtual secrecy to Washington, stirred the normally staid chamber to a rousing ovation and moved many colleagues to tears when he made a surprise appearance in the Senate in the late afternoon to break a Republican filibuster on a Medicare bill. ... Once it became clear that Democrats had the votes to push the bill through, Republican resistance collapsed and the procedural obstacle was cleared on a vote of 69 to 30.

You could call the appearance a profile in courage.

Mr. Dodd said that Mr. Kennedy’s medical team had cautioned against the visit but that Mr. Kennedy would not be deterred.

I join Jeralyn (who discussed the merits of this important bill yesterday) in saying: Thank you, Senator Kennedy.

President Bush will sign the new FISA bill into law today at a ceremony in the Rose Garden.

Just like when I watch the Bachelorette, I'm counting down to his final rose ceremony.

As an unusually long editorial in The New York Times expresses,

it was distressing — and depressing — to watch Congress wrench Americans’ civil liberties back to where they were in the days before Watergate, when the United States government listened to our phone calls whenever it wanted.

From Republicans (all of whom voted for the FISA bill except McCain who was too busy trying to be noticed to show up at the one place he might have been noticed today) this is what we expect:

Senator Christopher S. Bond, the Missouri Republican who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there was nothing to fear in the bill “unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial.”

From Democrats we expect more. For Senators Baucus, Bayh, Carper, Casey, Conrad, Feinstein, Inouye, Johnson, Kohl, Landrieu, Lincoln, McCaskill, Mikulski, both Nelsons, Obama, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Webb, and Whitehouse, and for the United States Constitution, this is a dark day indeed.

At least the Senate did one thing right today. It passed the bill to restore Medicare funding that the House passed in June. And, it's veto-proof.

The vote was 69-30 -- "a veto-proof margin," said Paul Precht, spokesman for the nonprofit Medicare Rights Center. Pres. Bush had threatened to veto the bill if passed.

The cuts went into effect July 1. They included an $1,800 cap on outpatient physical, occupational and speech therapy.

I know about this because this weekend I got a letter from the TL mom's nursing home saying that her therapy would end July 1 unless she agrees to pay 100% of the cost due to the Senate not getting its act together before the recess to pass the House bill that would extend the deadline for the cuts to take effect. It failed to pass the bill then by one vote. The cuts were passed in 2005 but every year Congress has voted to extend the date the cuts take effect.

Other aspects of the bill: [More...]