By Dave Lindorff

The US Senate did what the Founding Fathers expected it to do when
they devised the idea of an upper house of Congress. Playing the role
of Britain’s House of Lords to the House’s House of Commons, it ignored
the rabble (that’s us, the voters) and voted the opposite way of the
House of Representatives, which on Monday had voted down the Bush
Administration’s proposed $700-billion to $1-trillion give-away to Wall
Street financial companies.

The Senate vote in support of the measure, which went 74-25 (the
ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy missed the vote), reflects the fact that, first
of all, Senators, who run representing entire states, are very
difficult to unseat because of the huge cost of mounting a media
campaign against an incumbent, and second that two-thirds of them even
don’t face voters this November, (and one third not for another four
years).

By Dave Lindorff

With the Bush Administration, the two leading presidential
candidates, and the Congressional leadership, as well as a phalanx of
Wall Street lobbyists all pushing hard for a massive transfer of
taxpayer money to the coffers of banks and investment banks, the
American people need to demand a halt to this bums' rush to a bailout.

By Dave Lindorff

The most entertaining thing about this Wall Street crisis and the
refusal of the House of Representatives (not failure but refusal) to
pass a bailout bill negotiated by the Bush White House and the House
leadership is how shocked and upset those leaders and the pundit class
have been by the idea that members of Congress would actually heed the
wishes of their constituents!

The Founding Fathers always saw the lower house of Congress as
voice of the people—the elected body that, because its members had to
face the voters every two years, would be most responsive to public
sentiment.

By Dave Lindorff

It is going to be entertaining, to say the least, to watch John McCain and Barack Obama, both of whom endorsed the crooked, stacked rip-off bailout bill being scaremongered into law by the Bush Administration.

Now that it is clear that the American public overwhelmingly
recognizes this bill as a corrupt attempt to rob them and reward the
crooks and shysters on Wall Street, how will McCain and Obama weasel
out of their endorsement of the proposal?

They can certainly count their lucky stars that the vote was in the
House and not in the Senate, where they would have already had to take
a public stand up or down on the measure, but let's be clear--both men
have said they suppport the negotiated proposal that was put to the
House today, and which went down to a stinging defeat, 228-205, despite
the solid support of the House Democratic leadership.

By Dave Lindorff

The Congressional switchboard is jammed. You can get through, but it
takes a dedicated finger on the redial button of your phone. Operators
at the Capitol say it's been that way for a week now, as Americans
across the country have been flooding their Congressional delegations
with phone calls (and emails) urging them to vote "No" on the
Bush/Paulson Wall Street bailout.

That today is no exception, after Democratic Party leaders (and both
major party presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama)
bought into the plan after adding some window-dressing measures
designed to make it look more palatable. This shows that the public is
not fooled.

Alan Grayson is the Democratic candidate in FL-08 against Ric Keller, and he's promising real accountability for the war criminals inside and outside the Bush Administration.

The Bush administration is heading us towards more disaster with its 'toxic debt' bailout and destabilization of Pakistan and Iran. We can't afford to go down this road again. In this short video, Heather Wokusch provides background, context and ideas for taking action.

Links for sources cited in this video:

Bailout:

Crisis talks over $700B 'toxic debt' rescue plan

Impeachment supporter Adam Sullivan challenged Jerrold Nadler in the Democratic primary in NY08, but was thrown off the ballot on a technicality. Today he endorsed Steve Harrison for Congress in NY13 over Mike McMahon, Rahm Emanuel's chosen candidate.

Virgil and Tom faced off for the first time on August 13th in a forum
that demonstrated the wide gap between the two of them - especially
when it comes to immigration policy. Virgil has repeatedly touted his
fence: "There's no way a 12 foot ladder will cross this fence."

A little help of some visual aids would be useful in understanding
Virgil's complex "3 tier" fence policy that was outlined in 5 parts?

A win for Perriello in my book. I can't wait for the next showdown between these two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMIeE7ZxDXE

Guest blogged by Phil Munger:

In Alaska, the state tied most closely to corruption, two credible candidates have emerged to challenge the structural problems that led to so much unbridled fraud and naked venality. On the Right, current Governor Sarah Palin emerged two years ago, to challenge big oil's longtime dominance of the state's executive branch. On the Left, Diane Benson emerged around the same time to challenge both Alaska GOP Rep. Don Young for his seat in the U.S. Congress, and her own party, the Alaska Democrats.