Axelrod blasts Rove

By GottaLaff

David Axelrod blasted Karl Rove, who bellowed that Democrats in Congress "will run up more debt by October than Bush did in eight years."

Them's fightin' words:

"During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.... To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration's swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit."

"There's an old saying that everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts. The next time Karl Rove would like to offer us some advice, I'd urge him to take that to heart."

Short version: Hey KKKarl, you guys f'ed up in an unprecedented way, you're a colossal liar, so shut your pig snouty pie hole.

VIDEO- Debtor's Revolt over "Financial Rape": Woman Refuses To Pay Off B of A Credit Card

By GottaLaff



She made a few factual errors during the rant, but, hey, she's livid:

Minch announced that she'd be dumping Bank of America, refusing to pay off her credit card debt unless she was offered a lower rate. She explained that she'd been a reliable customer even though she'd lost her job as a mental health case manager. She said bank reps refused to negotiate her interest rate when she called them to complain a few weeks ago.

"You are evil, thieving bastards," she said in her video. "Stick that in your bailout pipe and smoke it."

The video made a splash online, getting links from all kinds of venues and garnering over 96,000 views as of Monday morning.

Minch told the Huffington Post she fulfilled part of her threat on Saturday, when she went to her local BofA branch and closed out her checking and savings accounts. She took her money (around $5,000, she said) and put in a local community bank. She brought printouts of web pages that had linked to her video, but a manager wasn't interested in looking at them.

More here. Much more.

It's getting more and more difficult to read news stories these days. Americans are at their breaking point, as is apparent nearly everywhere.

H/t: Gr8RDH

Poll: 70 Percent of American Consumers in Debt

No, really? /sarcasm

A recent survey shows American consumers to be in the red.

• 70: Percentage of American consumers in debt
• 73: Percentage of American consumers between 18-49 in debt
• 60: Percentage of those over 50 years old in debt
• 30: Percentage who have credit card balances not paid in full every month
• 40: Percentage of those in debt with monthly obligations greater than half their monthly income
• 10: Percentage of consumers who have filed, or at least considering filing, for bankruptcy

Read more Data Points

Sources: AARP

$845

By GottaLaff

I think even I could raise this much. In fact, Paddy and I have raised about this much during one of our week-long fundraisers. It took Burris a whole quarter:

Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) reported raising just $845 during the first quarter of the year and had $111,032 in debts from defending himself in ongoing ethics and perjury probes, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Hillary Clinton team offers American Idol tickets to backers

By GottaLaff

Listen up, dawg. This sounds a little pitchy, but, yo, I'm kinda feelin' it. Check it out, man:

Hillary Clinton's camp is offering up a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to her supporters: American Idol season finale tickets.

In an e-mail sent to online supporters on the former democratic presidential candidate's e-mail list serve, democratic strategist James Carville solicited donations from backers to help Clinton pay off her campaign debt.

A contribution will enter participants in a contest to win one of three prizes: a day attending events with former President Bill Clinton followed by "your own special weekend" in New York City, a lunch and political conversation in DC with Democratic political strategists James Carville and Paul Begala, or the chance to attend the American Idol season finale in Los Angeles.

Gramm-pa McCain had less than $24 million

By GottaLaff

Maybe Grammps should think about returning some of IWRC* Palin's fancy-schmancy designer outfits:

John McCain and the Republican National Committee reported having a combined $84 million as of last week to spend before Election Day, according to reports filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

McCain, who has accepted public financing for his campaign, is restricted in his spending. As of Oct. 15 he had more than $25 million in hand, but more than $1 million debts. The RNC, which has been helping his candidacy, had more than $59 million in the bank.

At McCain's spending rate of $1.5 million a day, the Arizona senator likely has only $12 million to spend in the next 11 days before the Nov. 4 election. [...]

If Obama sustains or exceeds his $5 million a day fundraising rate, he could report at least $75 million in new money in his pre-general election filings.

McLetters

By GottaLaff

The L.A. Times had an opinion piece that has gotten a couple of letter-writers peeved:

As a USC student, I agree that the "spoiled children" moniker has truth. Some students here do party much harder than they study. But I do hope that John McCain and everyone else who describes USC as such also notices my under-$2,000 Pontiac squeezed between cars with higher-priced rims.

Maybe he'll learn I'm a kid from rural Montana with a family income hovering around $20,000 and an expected family contribution of less than the cost of a textbook.

Hopefully, he'll learn how USC gave me a need-based grant that, along with federal grants, allowed me to attend one of the best engineering schools in the nation.

And when Rob Long suggests that "uniquely spoiled" USC students such as I who worked hard for the chance to escape poverty need "an electoral swirly," I hope he doesn't mean cutting public funding for individual students. I would like to be able to graduate.

And:

Funny, John McCain didn't seem to hold USC in such low regard when he gave the commencement speech back in 2004 and accepted an honorary degree.

As for Long's misguided Op-Ed article suggesting that McCain was right to disparage the school because it's full of spoiled and entitled brats, I've got tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt that suggest otherwise.

Compassionate conservatism strikes again.

Hillary's Debt and How She'll Pay It Off

By GottaLaff

I have to go to work, but go here to discover that Hillary will be just fine, thank you:

Though Hillary Rodham Clinton racked up more than $30 million in debt during her Democratic primary campaign, she could emerge from her loss with a bundle of campaign cash to either play kingmaker or mount another campaign of her own. [...]

That financial path would go something like this: Reclassify as a contribution most of the $11.4 million or more she loaned her campaign, which would be a personal financial hit because she wouldn’t be able to recoup much of it. Ask her donors to redirect $23.7 million they gave for her presidential general election campaign to her Senate campaign committee.

Meanwhile, try to raise some fast cash - possibly with assistance from her vanquisher, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama - to pay off vendors who might sue her presidential campaign, leaving “friendly” debt to be paid down gradually as she raises money from her Senate perch.