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From MSNBC's Morning Meeting Oct. 16, 2009. Dylan Ratigan explains how Goldman Sachs managed to make $3 billion in three months investing our tax dollars sent to keep them afloat with no strings attached.

For more you can read his entry at the Huffington Post Goldman Sachs' Black Magic, Here's How They Did It.

Goldman at the apex of the crisis is delivered this money -- which they then use to borrow against at $20 or $30 for every $1. Which at 30x equals $2.1 trillion in available capital.

As one of the only banks in the world with money at the time, Goldman Sachs was able to buy billions in distressed assets around the world at record low prices -- only to watch $23.7 trillion in US taxpayer money be deployed during the past year to re-inflate the asset's values that Goldman had purchased with our tax money.

The question is not why did we bail out the banks.

The question is why did we give the banks billions of our money so they could then buy assets by the trillions with our money and they keep the profits?

The answer is Henry Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO who ran the US Treasury, and Tim Geithner, current Treasury Secretary who at the time ran the New York Federal Reserve, willingly delivered Goldman Sachs the $70 Billion -- with no strings attached.

So what can we do?

1. We must demand the return of those investment gains made with America's money - it was stolen from us and we can get it back. Demand Claw Backs - and not from the future but from the past - That is where our money is.
2. We must have an exchange for all credit derivatives -- the current version is riddled with loopholes that let banks avoid transparency by mobbing offshore and prohibiting government regulators from being able to force the use of the exchange by the banks.

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Working for MSNBC has been bad for Chuck Todd. I really used to like his analysis back when he was just weighing in during the mornings on C-SPAN and writing for The Hotline. Chuck seems to think that Sarah Palin has now had some magical pixie dust scattered on her that makes her immune from the same scrutiny other politicians have to endure because she has become....a celebrity. Isn't that special?

Chuck Todd seems to have forgotten what he wrote back on Aug. 2, 2008, when John McCain ran his "celebrity" ad against then candidate Barack Obama.

The hardest thing to do in politics is campaign as someone you aren't.

People can spot an imposter from a mile away.

The most successful politicians are the ones who embrace their best traits while turning their liabilities into loveable attributes.

And yet, many a candidate tries to run as something they aren't simply because the strategy dictates it. And when even a good strategy doesn't match the candidate, the result can be a disjointed campaign that produces a lot of uncomfortable moments.

Unless, somehow, the candidate figures out how to embrace the strategy.

Are we seeing this happen right now to John McCain?

If you were to diagnose the best way to go at Obama in the midst of this disastrous Republican environment, you might come up with the tactics the McCain brain trust unveiled this week: Paint Obama as a bit full of himself, over-confident, elitest and out of touch.

There are a number of ways to paint that picture, including attacking Obama for his celebrity. America has a love-hate relationship with celebrity. We love to follow celebrities but we also love to mock them. And secretly we believe we're better than they are.

Making light of Obama's pop icon status and trying to use it as a way to undermine his serious presidential credentials is a good one. The latest McCain ad did just that. We may love U2 and we may love Bono's humanitarian efforts, but do voters in Youngstown want him as president?

But the flaw in this attack from McCain is that it doesn't fit who he is. This is a guy who hangs out with Warren Beatty. This is a guy who is married to a wealthy beer heiress. This is a guy whose senior adviser was Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign manager. This is a guy who owes much of his success in national politics to marketing himself as a political celebrity.

And attacking Obama’s celebrity is just one part of the playbook. There are two more plays: attacking his experience and attacking his common touch.

So now that Sarah Palin is a "celebrity" in Todd's eyes, it's all good. Not something to potentially attack someone for. When asked why he thought Palin was leaving the Governor's office, Todd seemed to think it was all about that great conservative value, lining ones' own pocket. I'm sure they'll all be trying to spin that into something positive for her as well. She just needs the money since that evil liberal media, and those evil folks who kept filing those darned ethics charges against her made her need to quit and go make some money instead of paying fines for politicking when she was supposed to be governing.

Transcript below the fold.

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MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell reports that according to her sources, not only is Sarah Palin stepping down as Governor of Alaska, she is also getting out of politics, period. Time will tell if Mitchell's reporting is accurate, and whether this is a result of her legal problems that are potentially mounting in Alaska or her thinking that this move somehow would help her in a Presidential run. I would bet on the former if forced to take odds.

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Pat Buchanan on MSNBC during a break in their wall to wall Michael Jackson coverage fear mongering over the energy bill that just passed the House.

Witt: Why doesn't anyone want to call it a climate bill?

Buchanan: Well, because the science is suggesting that maybe all of this isn't really happening or it's not really dangerous or it's not really man made. Barack Obama, the President is right when he said we shouldn't be afraid of the future. That is how this bill got passed through fear. We're all going to change. The climate's going to change. The oceans are going to rise. Our cities are going to be under water.

But more and more scientists are coming forward to say this is a hoax and a scam which is designed to transfer wealth and power from the private sector to the government sector and from the government of the United States to a world government. Which is what we're going to get in Copenhagen when we get this Kyoto two agreement.

Witt: Okay, here come the emails.

Alex, no one believes you didn't fully expect Buchanan to say something outrageous before you and your producers allowed him on the air. Don't go whining after it's too late about getting nasty emails for doing it. Buchanan fails to specify, and Witt fails to ask him just who these scientists are.