The bailout bill? It didn't pass the House. The vote went 228-205 against, with 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans opposing the Paulson/Dodd/Frank/Pelosi/Blunt plan. Insane. The Dow is self-destructing. The roll call vote is here, the list of members who voted against the bill can be found below. So what now? It'll go back to another vote in the House. Maybe. Something weird happened here, by the way, because in the modern era, votes don't go to the floor of the house until party leaders know how the rank and file will vote. Bills don't make it out of committee unless they're going to pass. This was either too volatile and rushed to work, or Pelosi lost control of her own party, or Boehner lied to her about how many House Republicans were going to grin and bear it. So. Now, because of the Jewish Holidays, nothing will get done until Wednesday. "Asked about the next step, Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said it would be up to those who opposed the bill." That is troubling! Basically, nothing can get done until the election is done. Which is still a bit of a ways away! So let's hope this collapse of the entire financial sector can hold off, for a few weeks, while either another almost-identical bailout bill is drafted and pushed through or Dems create their own fuck-you bill that maybe nationalizes everything like Krugman and Brad DeLong want. (We like that option!) (It's a fantasy, but a guy can dream.) The Dems, obviously, don't want to make this a one-party bill, because then they'll own the "HUGE BAILOUT." But, you know, they could draft an entirely different plan (the Dodd/Frank plan as proposed originally seemed sufficiently different from the Paulson "plan" to warrant a different name) and try to reframe the debate as Paulson's BAILOUT versus their tough love or whatever, but their majority is too small and their instincts too chickenshit to do that. So basically they'll muddle along as the banks burn, or something. Maybe we'll all be fine! Who needs credit anyway. ANYWAYS President Obama is going to inherit one hell of a shitshow. Abercrombie Aderholt Akin Alexander Altmire Baca Bachmann Barrett (SC) Barrow Bartlett (MD) Barton (TX) Becerra Berkley Biggert Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Blackburn Blumenauer Boustany Boyda (KS) Braley (IA) Broun (GA) Brown-Waite, Ginny Buchanan Burgess Burton (IN) Butterfield Buyer Capito Carney Carson Carter Castor Cazayoux Chabot Chandler Childers Clay Cleaver Coble Conaway Conyers Costello Courtney Cuellar Culberson Cummings Davis (KY) Davis, David Davis, Lincoln Deal (GA) DeFazio Delahunt Dent Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Doggett Doolittle Drake Duncan Edwards (MD) English (PA) Fallin Feeney Filner Flake Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gerlach Giffords Gillibrand Gingrey Gohmert Goode Goodlatte Graves Green, Al Green, Gene Grijalva Hall (TX) Hastings (WA) Hayes Heller Hensarling Herseth Sandlin Hill Hinchey Hirono Hodes Hoekstra Holden Hulshof Hunter Inslee Issa Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Jefferson Johnson (GA) Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones (NC) Jordan Kagen Kaptur Keller Kilpatrick King (IA) Kingston Knollenberg Kucinich Kuhl (NY) Lamborn Lampson Latham LaTourette Latta Lee Lewis (GA) Linder Lipinski LoBiondo Lucas Lynch Mack Manzullo Marchant Matheson McCarthy (CA) McCaul (TX) McCotter McHenry McIntyre McMorris Rodgers Mica Michaud Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Mitchell Moran (KS) Murphy, Tim Musgrave Myrick Napolitano Neugebauer Nunes Ortiz Pascrell Pastor Paul Payne Pearce Pence Peterson (MN) Petri Pitts Platts Poe Price (GA) Ramstad Rehberg Reichert Renzi Rodriguez Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Rothman Roybal-Allard Royce Rush Salazar Sali Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Scalise Schiff Schmidt Scott (GA) Scott (VA) Sensenbrenner Serrano Shadegg Shea-Porter Sherman Shimkus Shuler Shuster Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Solis Stark Stearns Stupak Sullivan Sutton Taylor Terry Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Thornberry Tiahrt Tiberi Tierney Turner Udall (CO) Udall (NM) Visclosky Walberg Walz (MN) Wamp Watson Welch (VT) Westmoreland Whitfield (KY) Wittman (VA) Woolsey Wu Yarmuth Young (AK) Young (FL)

Early this morning, Congressional leaders announced they'd come to a tentative agreement on a $700 billion bailout plan to save America. Yay? Thankfully, a kindly reporter at Reuters has gone ahead and laid out the key points of the plan, which still needs to be ratified by the full House and Senate. See the solution that will totally revolutionize Wall Street and protect us from douchebankers forever and ever after the jump. -The $700 billion in buying power would be doled out by Congress in stages. After the first $250 billion is authorized, the President could request another $100 billion. The final $350 billion could be cleared by a further act of Congress. - Washington will take a stake in companies helped through the program so that taxpayers can share in the profits if those companies get back on their feet. - A new congressional panel would have oversight power and the Treasury secretary would report regularly to lawmakers in two elements of a multi-level oversight apparatus. - Compensation limits would be set for the chiefs of participating firms to prevent excessive pay and "golden parachutes" for those who might tap government aid and then quit. - The federal government may stall foreclosure proceedings on home loans purchased under the plan. - Alongside the plan to buy securities outright, the Treasury Department will conceive an alternative insurance program that would underwrite troubled loans and would be paid for by participating companies. - If the government has taken losses five years into the program, the Treasury Department will draft a plan to tax the companies that took part to recoup taxpayer losses.

The "serious" finance/econ press (ranging from liberal Krugman to conservative Rich Lowry) agrees that the House Republican plan—insurance??—is a joke. McCain lending his ostensible support to it (though he won't come out for it, his intervention pushed the rebelling Repubs to the forefront of the debate) is designed either to scuttle a compromise he had no part in (vanity) or to provide Republicans the opportunity to avoid supporting an unpopular but arguably necessary bill (sabotage). If Dems were smart, they'd recast their compromise bill as a liberal response to the Bush/Paulson plan. Hopefully it is that, too! I.e. play up the laregly symbolic golden parachute bullshit, etc. Most likely, some version of the Dodd/Frank bill will pass this weekend, with Republican support (and probably with some minor concessions John McCain can crow about). Right? Unless McCain makes good on his threat to travel back to DC after the debate and, you know, win this war on banks. Here's John Carney on what House negotiations will look like now:

Hah. We just cracked open Roll Call for basically the first time since we left Washington DC, and it turns out we miss reading occasional updates on the slow, grinding pace of incredibly stupid legislation. Like! "Less than a week after the Senate passed its own regulations for using YouTube videos, the House Administration Committee tried to do the same - and ended up with an emotionally charged hearing and a breakdown in negotiations." Oh, it gets better. "The issue itself is almost mundane," Roll Call explains. Love that hedging "almost." You know, the future of the free world might depend on allowing members of congress to vlog, we better leave that for the reader to decide. How did this particular negotiation fall apart? Did John McCain step in at the last minute to broker a deal, again?

Hank Paulson went before Congress to ask that he get a shit-ton of money to purchase mortgage-backed securities. The bipartisan Joint Economic Committee hammered out a compromise, giving Paulson some of what he wanted but with more oversight and perhaps a better deal for taxpayers. John McCain ran back to Washington to solve this himself, and as soon as his plane touched down the compromise fell apart, with conservative House Republicans balking at passing anything resembling the Paulson plan. So what happened yesterday, exactly? Who do we blame for everything? And what'll happen now? Your financial and congressional newspapers have the story. In case you're not a Roll Call or Wall Street Journal subscriber, we'll explain what they're saying about this mess. The Wall Street Journal on what happens now:

So Barney Frank and Chris Dodd—and some senior Republicans!—hashed out a compromise bailout plan that looked much better than the Paulson plan, and it should pass the House and Senate before the markets open on Monday. Hooray! Except John McCain needs to look like he solved this crisis, so he told Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, to announce that no one agreed to anything and then Bachus added that McCain has his own brand-new plan no one has seen before. So by "solving the crisis" McCain basically torpedoed the bipartisan consensus just as it formed. Barney Frank is all "why didn't Bachus bring this up during our meeting, the fact that John McCain would immediately force him to denounce the plan he just agreed to?" Meanwhile John Boehner has appointed nine ultra-conservative House Republicans to draft a third plan. Ha ha ha...?? The Dodd/Frank plan still might pass. But who knows what Bush will do! We won't debate any of the plans on their merits because what the fuck do we know (except that the Boehner plan will be terrible). Oh and how about those debates? "I'm hopeful that we can. I believe it's very possible if we can get an agreement in time to for me to get to Mississippi but I also asked Senator Obama to go to 10 town halls with me...he refused." That's a rough quote from McCain to the press at 5:30 or so today. He probably thinks he sounds very leader-y and not just petulant. Obama wouldn't debate me then, on my terms, 100 times, so I won't debate him now! Why can't this 100-year-old man GROW UP.

Ah, the Congressional internship. Stepping-stone to a lifetime of tireless public service, or just entitled whining and constant intoxication paired with exponentially growing cynicism about the entire process. Fun! We just obtained an email from an outgoing summer intern at a Senate office that, in the words of our tipster, is "comparable only with Washington's Farewell Address." It is a "gentle reminder" that today will be this young go-getters last day at the office. It goes on to explain "the nature of democracy" and features the phrase "the noblest self-disclosure." The young intern sent the email to everyone in the damn office, of course. "Dear colleagues and respected staff members," it begins, ominously...

Should menthol cigarettes be banned? From a public health standpoint, shit yea. It would be best for all of us if the only cigarettes available were unattractively packaged, harsh-tasting, and unwieldy. As a Kool smoker, though, I have mixed feelings. You know who else does? Members of the Congressional Black Caucus who receive bundles of cash from the tobacco industry! The fact that "75 percent of black smokers choose mentholated brands" means that the current battle over whether or not to ban them goes to issues even deeper than their sweet, sweet mentholated taste. Things at stake: billions of dollars in revenue, hundreds of millions in marketing campaigns, racial tension, and how happy cigarette companies are to kill you in exchange for money! The current bill in Congress would ban "flavored" cigarettes, but exempt menthols. The Black Caucus is an important player because they stand for the black community—the most enthusiastic consumers of menthols—and they've been wooed big time by tobacco companies.

"Several of Congress' most prominent Jewish members are set to go after John McCain on an issue of perceived strength," reports Sam Stein at the HuffPo. That strength? McCain's willingness to nuke anyone who looks at America (or Israel) the wrong way. They're going to pass a resolution criticizing McCain for not being tough enough on Iran. For real! The candidate who sang a happy song about starting a useless, unwinnable war with Iran is now in trouble with the Congressional Jews for being too Iran-friendly. Well, their precise argument is that McCain didn't vote to close a loophole that allows US corporations to do business with sanctioned regimes via shell companies. But the point of highlighting this is to once again stake out a foreign policy position to the right of a proud hawk. Isn't it fun when Democrats do this? Now Barack Obama will surely win Florida, Tel Aviv, and Brighton Beach. [HuffPo]

Four years ago, the US government had a bright idea: "Let's launch a propaganda-spouting TV news network in the Arab world," the government said. "We'll spend $350 million on it, but we'll staff it with incompetent people, ensure the programming is dull and clumsy, and hopefully create a counterproductive and ill-conceived boondoggle that will go down in history as one of the stupidest 'hearts and minds' campaigns of the new century!" And that's exactly what they did. Except it didn't turn out quite that well.

Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan) spent his time on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday giving a little presentation called "How to Speak Democrat." For example, "progressive" means "regressive"! So witty! And the presentation (shown below) should in no way be seen as the sole thing McCotter has accomplished with his time while he only raised $8,500 of the nearly $1 million he's supposed to raise for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Such generosity! Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels and the on-again/off-again host of a radio show on WABC, is graciously volunteering to run for Vito Fossella's Congressional seat. Naturally, the attention-seeking competitive pickle eater, stickball champion, and rumored candidate for public advocate, didn't hatch the idea himself: It's the will of the people! "As I walked along Forest Ave, for the Memorial Day parade, as I do every year, something seemed different. I was greeted from time to time with chants from the crowd urging me to jump into the race if no other candidate did so," Sliwa wrote to local Republican party officials. A trip to Washington seems an unlikely scenario for the beret-wearing Sliwa, although if he were to be win, it's safe to say he'd be only member of Congress with a cheesy techno track on his MySpace page.

Valleywag is of course known for its dead-on accuracy, so our predictions for 2008 need no introduction. Inside, my 25 predictions (made without inside information) cover the futures of Facebook, Google, Digg, YouTube, Twitter, the Wall Street Journal, Apple, Yahoo, Gawker Media, AOL, Dell, LOLcats, the president, and more.

Rep. Dem Yvette Clarke, first-term Congresswoman from Park Slope, "was one of just nine members of Congress who last week voted against House resolution 847, a symbolic bill that, among other things, acknowledged 'the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.'" SHE VOTED 'NO' ON CHRISTMAS. [The Brooklyn Paper]

Earlier this week, Congress passed a resolution affirming that "the House of Representatives ... expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide; acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;[and] acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization." That ought to clear up any lingering confusion. [Scanner]

By Beth Gottfried