Let us eat what??

You hear the most amazing things sometimes, just hanging out there in the mainstream media for anyone paying attention.

On my way to speak to a class at American University yesterday, I heard two whoppers right next to each other, pieces of information so mind-blowing I almost had to pull over to collect myself.

The first regarded Sen. Ted Stevens, the long-time (and kinda batty – this is the guy who thinks the internet is “a series of tubes”) senator from Alaska who is famous for steering appropriations (such as money for the “bridge to nowhere”) to his state.  He is currently under indictment by the U.S. Justice Department for tax evasion and corruption.  The news bit?  The Justice Department was going to allow Sen. Stevens to skip a few days of his corruption trial… so he could work on the Wall St. bailout bill.

Do they even get the supreme irony?

Probably not, because they followed up by saying that the jury would not be told where Sen. Stevens was on his “absentee days,” so he could not cultivate sympathy from the jurors for his selfless work to save the nation’s financial system.  Oh brother.

The second item came shortly after in a segment with economists talking about that very bailout bill now being rushed through Congress.  It seems that even most of the economists who are saying we need this $700 billion monstrosity aren’t terribly sure it’s going to work, and are predicting hard times ahead either way.  One in particular noted, without a trace of humor in his voice, that if you didn’t want to have to work past age 65, you “should probably start getting used to eating beans and cornbread now.”  God only knows what’s going to happen to those who are still 30 or 40 years away from their presumed retirement.

So that’s our future? Eating beans until we die?  It’s amazing enough that Congress is rushing to pass the overwhelmingly largest bailout in U.S. history in less time than they take to declare national cabbage month.  And all because Treasury Secretary Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs employee, and his boss President Bush, tell them they “have to” to prevent “immediate” financial collapse.  Really?  It can’t take another week or two to figure out he best course of action?  And once again, Congress is taking the word of the guy who told them we “had” to go into Iraq, because they absolutely and without question had all these weapons of mass destruction?  What is it they say about “fool me twice?”

Whether or not this bill will do anything to restore sanity to our financial industry, let alone re-establish the strong regulations and laws necessary to keep yet another crisis from emerging – regulations and laws that were demolished one by one of the past 20 years – remains to be seen.  Protections and help for homeowners facing foreclosure?  Who knows.  But this President comes demanding $700 billion of our money to help out his Wall St. cronies, and this Congress cannot move fast enough.

So – do you prefer black, kidney or pinto?