Wonkette Weekette! Sept. 25-Oct. 1, 2008

Monday

How to Blame Bush/McCain for Your New Great Depression
If you own a house, it’s now worth negative nothing. If you’re a renter, your landlord is probably already in foreclosure and you will soon be homeless. Got some investments, maybe a 401k or whatever? You really don’t even want to look. Got one of those fancy jobs with benefits and health care and such? You will soon be unemployed, living in a Hobo Jungle down by the railroad tracks in the darkness on the edge of town. Happy Monday, everybody! But how can you blame this on McCain and his boyfriend George W. Bush?

Lehman Brothers is gone and Merrill Lynch is just the latest loser to be consumed by Bank of America, which will soon be the only bank in America, until it also collapses and citizens are forced to eat their dogs.

The S&P 500 is down more than 20% since October, one of every 10 homeowners is either in foreclosure or months behind in payments, and another 100,000 financial industry jobs will be gone by the end of this grim quarter. It’s un-American to blame any of this on greedy, dumb Americans — whether the part-time service worker with $25,000 of credit card debt or the mortgage-securities geniuses who destroyed hallowed Wall Street firms by betting, retardedly, that real estate prices would just keep climbing, forever, and that people would keep making the house payments, despite having less income.

So let’s blame it on these assholes:

John McCain: Ha ha, google “bank collapse McCain” and you will find some fun results that old Walnuts had hoped were forgotten forever, because who remembers boring things like the Savings and Loan apocalypse or the Keating Five? Also, one of his sons just fled the board of a failed bank in Nevada!

Phil Gramm: Hateful old banking industry Texan crook was/is John McCain’s Economy Czar. He’s the one who called America a “nation of whiners” for being sad because of the New Depression. He also sponsored the deregulation that created the financial collapse. Gramm is also a vice-chairman at UBS, which is about to collapse, too.

George W. Bush: He told you to go shopping after 9/11, and you were stupid enough to do it. You are now a gazillion dollars in debt for a bunch of already-obsolete consumer electronics and clothes that no longer fit, because you are fat, because poor people are fat because they can only afford bags of 49-cent greaseburgers, for their food. –Ken Layne

But the Fundamentals Are Strong!
John McCain said, today, that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” He doesn’t even know what this is supposed to mean, of course, because all he knows about the economy is that the Navy gives you money and benefits and the Senate gives you money and benefits and Social Security gives you money and benefits and your Beer Heiress wife buys you seven castles and a private jet. But what did the markets have to say? Uh, how about a 504-point drop in the Dow and a 4.7% plunge in the S&P? –KL

As America Burned, Sarah Palin Tanned, in a Tanning Bed, in the Governor’s Mansion
Alaskan dingbat Sarah Palin did something very important when she became governor of Alaska just 19 months ago: She had a tanning bed installed in the governor’s mansion — the one she refuses to live in, so she could charge Alaskan taxpayers $17,000 to sleep in her other tanning bed, at home in Wasilla. Now we breathlessly await confirmation that she also had a tattoo parlor set up in the executive office. –KL

Palin Won’t Talk to ‘Troopergate’ Investigator
Sarah Palin is proving she’s truly an Alaskan politician — you know, a corrupt hack! The McCain campaign says its celebrity idiot will not cooperate with the Troopergate investigation — you know, the legal investigation launched by Alaskan legislators because Palin did some weird crap with the Alaska state troopers. She replaced them all with her husband’s pot dealer or something, who knows, but it is super crooked and rotten and she is so much worse than Nixon and Stalin. –KL

Tuesday

Hey McCain, Richard Cohen Wants His Mix Tape Back
Ha ha, remember last Friday, before every bank in America liquidated and the New Depression kicked in and we had to boil our dogs for sustenance? Back in those innocent times, people were still fretting about how John McCain — a man who built a lifetime career on doing shitty things like leaving his crippled wife, consorting with S&L crooks, pandering to racists, and spewing foul invective at anyone who dared question his Honor — was suddenly not acting like his noble old self. So Richard Cohen is really only about 72 hours behind the curve on this one.

In today’s Washington Post he writes sadly about how his old boyfriend John McCain who used to be so wonderful is now just an awful sellout prick:

“I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. [...] When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story — that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

“McCain has soiled all that.”

We will leave it at that, with the image of John McCain “soiling” something, because the article is just downhill from there: a shoutout to renowned journalist Joy Behar, and then a quote from the sixth Marx brother, Karl, who said that history repeating itself once is tragedy, a second time is farce, and a third time is Richard Cohen’s column. –Sara K. Smith

John McCain Invented the BlackBerry!
Yes, a McCain advisor said that John McCain “helped create” the motherfucking BlackBerry, which is an insult to John McCain, who lost his ability to type or invent small digital devices that have tiny little keys when he was in Vietnam for FIVE AND A HALF YEARS, ALAN.

Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain’s work as a senator, [Douglas Holtz-Eakin] told reporters Tuesday, “You’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create.”

[...] Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said McCain’s service on and leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee put him at the intersection of a number of economic interests, including the telecommunications industry.

It is horribly sad and offensive that even John McCain’s advisors, who are supposed to help him win this dumb election, cannot resist making him look like an asshole. Everybody knows that John McCain invented the celesta and has zero interest in that Al Gore techmology crap. –SKS

Presumptuous Sarah Palin to Meet With World Leaders
Well looky here at who’s getting too big for her lipsticks! It’s the most presumptuous celebrity in the world, Alaskan teleprompter fraud Sarah Palin. She’ll be meeting with various foreign dignitaries at the U.N. next week in order to show dubious Americans that she can, uh, sit down for crab cakes and fizzy water with the Sultan of Dubai. We are pretty sure this is tantamount to treason, meeting with all these people who can’t even vote in America. How nauseating to see somebody showboating around all glamorous-like with international superstars when there’s real work to do at home in the Real America (not New York). COUNTRY FIRST, PALIN. –SKS

Wednesday

Go Get Your Money, People
Collapsing investment banks are yesterday’s news, trendsetters! Now we can turn our attention to the biggest possible commercial banks failing miserably, like, say, Washington Mutual. And when that collapses, on Sunday, probably, it will likely drain up what’s left of the FDIC’s insurance fund. The FDIC can always get more money from the Treasury, or we can just have a BANK RUN!!! EVERYONE RUN TO THE BANK!!! PANIC! CHAOS FIRE OBAMA BURN!! –Jim Newell

AP McCain Feature Just Chock Full of Awful Metaphors About Accordion Players
It’s the New Associated Press! Less boring facts and whatever, and more shitty, shitty writing like you might find on a Live Journal, for the Retarded. Let’s enjoy some of the dozens of terrible metaphors in today’s AP feature on how John McCain is a shameful old fraud who should be locked in a bag of snakes and dropped down an oil well — no, wait! John McCain is actually like, uh, a person who plays the accordion. Because he’s super old, right?! Uhhh …

• “John McCain embraces and expels Washington like an accordion player belting out a song.”

• “Squeeze in, and he’s the new capital tour guide for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.”

• “Draw out, and he’s never set foot in the city himself.”

• “Squeeze in, and he’s got the Washington skill set needed to right the country’s Wall Street woes.”

• “Draw out, and he distances himself from the administration of the Republican president who has endorsed him.”

Next week on the AP Wire: John McCain is like an old guy who bowls down at the bowling alley, or something, but newfangled video games distract his attention, or something. –KL

New State Polls
From Time/CNN, conducted Sept. 14-16, in Battleground States. Florida: Obama 48, McCain 48; Indiana: McCain 51, Obama 45; North Carolina: McCain 48, Obama 47; Ohio: Obama 49, McCain 47; Wisconsin: Obama 50, McCain 47. Residents of these states should expect to see a steady influx of lawyers over the next six weeks. Lawyers! And awful lawyers at that, shipped wholesale from outer space in toxic cartons of live rats. –JN

And Here’s Some Great News From the Nader Campaign!
“Nader/Gonzalez officially on Florida Ballot.” Oh how fantastic, exactly what we wanted to hear, Ralph Nader weaseled his way onto the Florida ballot! WE ARE SO HAPPY FOR RALPH NADER, WHO HAS JUST MADE THE FLORIDA BALLOT. The heroic party that picked him up is the Ecology Party, which must be like the secret “art film wing” of the much larger Republican Party. –JN

Thursday

Traveling Press Corps Still Bored, Neglected
Back in the day before the YouTubes and the cable newses, presidential candidates had to “get the message out” by talking to the reporters who followed them around all the time. But now they don’t have to talk to anybody, they can just go on Hannity or whatever so now the job of the campaign-trail reporter is to sit on the candidate’s plane and bitch about how the candidate never talks to them.

Of course, it’s not like either candidate would have much to say even if they did ever bother to talk to these lowly “reporters” whose job it is to “report things.” Here is a verbatim transcript of an imaginary press conference John McCain would hold in the back of Straight Talk One:

REPORTER: What can you say to reassure the American people you understand the cause of this financial crisis and know how to fix it?

McCAIN: Applesauce applesauce applesauce.

And here is your Obama press conference:

REPORTER: You smell nice.

OBAMA: Thank you. Today I’m wearing [something expensive and delicious].

Of course, if Barack Obama had just agreed to do a million town halls with John McCain, John McCain would not have been forced to do such nasty attack ads and thousands of campaign reporters could have just snuck into these town halls wearing comical hats to disguise themselves as “ordinary folks” and asked their dumb questions that way. –SKS

‘Outer Space’ and ‘Rats’ Mentioned in Non-Wonkette News Source
Here is the headline: “Scientists to Count Kangaroo Rats From Outer Space.” Sorry, was it just yesterday that mean Ken Layne was mocking the AP for being so awful? Correction: Best news source on the planet … any planet. –SKS

John McCain Maybe Doesn’t Know Who Runs Spain These Days
We have listened to the recording of John McCain’s interview with Radio Caracol Miami where he appears not to know who the prime minister of Spain is, or whether or not he’d be willing to meet with him. It is just … weird.

At the end, the interviewer says, “I’m talking about the president of Spain,” and McCain gets all touchy. Perhaps, like many Vietnam vets, he suffered some hearing loss in the war, and now he’s not so great on the phone with people who speak rapid, accented English? Or (MORE LIKELY) he honestly believes that America must take a very tough stand on these Latin American dictators, including the guy who runs Spain, a democracy in Europe. Or! (LIKELIEST!) He thinks Zapatero is the Mexican guy in that Marlon Brando movie he liked so much. –SKS

Bush Emerges From Spider Hole to Mumble Some Stuff About the Economy
America’s president, George W. Bush, was supposed to go to a fundraiser today but he had to stay home and send Dick Cheney in his stead to stand around the buffet table and shovel shrimp cocktail into his pockets. Why? Because of the economy, which George Bush is “concerned” about! He even talked about it, on the teevee.

We missed his 30-second television address because we were too busy typing about kangaroo rats on the moon, but apparently he stood outside the Oval Office and said “Yeah America we are fucked, I do not know what to do, but we are working hard to wreck the economy!” Here are some actual quotes from his very informative address:

• “The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial markets and our economy. And I share their concerns.”

• “The markets are adjusting.”

• “I can’t tell you where this ends. I wish that I could.”

At which point everyone in America who bothered to watch this tragedy collectively shat their pants, and then the president disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a basket of kittens for everyone to look at. –SKS

China Thinking Now Might Be a Good Time to Conquer America
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the two largest independent investment banks to not have been brutally murdered yet, are … moderately fucked? Both companies’ stock prices have been dropping a solid 10-20% each of the last few days, but supposedly that will curtail when people calm the fuck down. WHICH WILL NEVER HAPPEN, which is why Morgan Stanley will now be sold to the Chinese government for two crusty dildos and a pack of Luckies.

China! They must be loving this. Just a few weeks ago they were chillin’ in Beijing, pretending to watch their Olympics and secretly planning the final details for their impending ground war on the United States of America. “Or we could just continue to buy them,” said an advisor to President Hu Jintao. Jintao decided they’d buy the United States for a little while longer, a few months, and then maybe next spring during the nice weather they’d come over for the final rape- and decapitation-heavy killfest. Jintao and his advisers then went to T.G.I. Friday’s for top-shelf mojitos, only to be greeted by former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey wearing a blueberry-flavored condom on his ring finger, and nothing else.

Anyway. China! The United States is currently being fucked sideways by 18 thousand new flavors of debt, and it needs it summathat China money! China has no need to invade us anymore, or even strategize. We have SO MUCH DEBT that we’ll soon be giving our country’s finest virgins to these Chinese investors as courtesy gifts so long as they keep buying our debt. We’ll come to them on hand and foot! Smoothest coup d’etat of all time.

Which brings us to the point, which is that China’s state-controlled fund may buy a 49% stake in Morgan Stanley. –JN

Friday

Henry Paulson’s Address to America
Oh hey look it’s our president, Henry Paulson, finally telling America what he’s going to do to make sure everyone isn’t so poor anymore. We are a little late to the game here since he started talking a few minutes ago but meh, what the hell, let’s give this a look.

10:10 AM — Oh God there are a lot of acronyms in this fellow’s address. More coffee please!

10:11 AM — On MNSBC they are showing the most terrible images next to old Paulson at his podium. Tragic Dow numbers, abandoned stucco mansions with a million foreclosure signs outside, traders wandering aimlessly around Wall Street … Yay, now he’s taking questions!

10:12 AM — Congratulations, taxpayers! You are now the proud owners of HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of bad debt, courtesy of various banks and lenders. Oh Jesus Paulson just RAN off the stage.

10:14 AM — Ha ha, well, that was brief but terrifying! Mika Brzezinski informs us that President Bush will be speaking in half an hour, which we will probably also watch, for “fun.” –SKS

George W. Bush Handing Taxpayers a Trillion-Dollar Bailout IOU
Poor George Bush, he has had to Address the Nation two days in a row, that is how awful this financial crisis has gotten. He is walking out onto his nice patio surrounded by all the people who John McCain will fire once he’s president: the chairman of the SEC, our old pal Henry Paulson, and Ben Bernanke. Let’s hear how bad our individual tax bills will be once we’ve socialized every large business in the US. Will we have to eat our housepets? Will there be condiments still?

10:47 AM — Please please please let him take questions afterward, and please let somebody ask him if he believes the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

10:48 AM — Oh right! Now money market funds are getting insured, because even they — once considered about as stable as putting your money under your mattress — are now looking a little shaky.

10:49 AM — Greasing the gears. Liquidity. This sounds like an Olestra ad.

10:50 AM — “Anyone engaging in illegal financial transactions will be caught and persecuted.” THAT IS WHAT HE SAID. Four more years!

10:51 AM — The government is purchasing pretty much everything in America that isn’t nailed down. Everything must go. Mortgages, banks, insurers, cats, kittens…

10:52 AM — Please everyone NO BANK RUNS do NOT go to the bank and take out all your munnies, says President Bush. He is so disgruntled and distressed that his nose looks different … pointier … bitterer. It is his mother’s nose: angry, dumb and vindictive.

10:53 AM — And now for the happy part, where he reviews all of the awful things that have happened in the past eight years. This is the latest of a tragic long list of “challenges” that America has “weathered.” Bush vows bipartisanship and getting back on the path of long-term growth.

10:54 AM — You know how the wives of philandering politicians always have to stand up at the podium while their husbands admit to the public that they fucked some hooker once? George W. Bush has three wives standing by him as he admits to the public that we are all going to have to take it up the ass, for America. –SKS

Friday

Iraqi Ayatollah’s Website Hacked by Bill Maher Loyalist Militia
While FBI and Secret Service agents continue to investigate how Sarah Palin could be so retarded as to choose “Wasilla high” as the answer to her “Forgot your password?” question on Yahoo! e-mail, another (less important) “hacking” has rocked America’s most placid colony, Iraq. The website of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful ever Shia cleric, has been pillaged by a gang of rascally Internet teenagers called “Group XP,” named to honor their favorite version of Microsoft Windows. The hackers have posted on their conquered site a YouTube of Bill Maher mocking the Ayatollah. WE BET THE AYATOLLAH WILL THINK THIS PRANK IS FUNNY AND JUST LAUGH IT OFF. –JN

Palin Foolishly Says Words Again
We’re getting used to this routine where once a day, usually mid-afternoon, a spasm of death shoots up our right arm after reading the latest Sarah Palin platitude. Is this what cancer feels like, cancer people? Today she pretended to care about Jews, and she went all in: “I will continue to call for sustained action to prevent Iranian President Ahmadinejad from getting these weapons that he wants for a second holocaust.” Good god, she is an actual tumor. Does she know nothing? If she ever listened to Ahmadinejad, she’d know that there never was a first holocaust. –JN

Mark Foley’s Name Will Be Cleared!
A long time ago right before this current presidential campaign began, in 2006, there was a charming middle-aged Florida bachelor congressman named Mark Foley who loved to masturbate while typing dirty messages to the boy-children who served as Congressional pages. Occasionally, he would show up drunk at the boy-page barn and demand some action. There is nothing wrong with this, and congressmen wouldn’t have those young supple pages supplied by the government if not to fuck those kids, right?

So, finally, after a liberal anti-sex crusade against our greatest congressman, it looks like Mark Foley will win back his honor.

“After an exhaustive two-year investigation, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley isn’t expected to face charges for sending salacious messages to underage pages, two federal law enforcement officials have told The Associated Press.” Hooray! –KL