Alan Grayson vs The Banksters

When Blue America endorsed Alan Grayson for Congress last year, we looked closely at his heroic activities as an attorney fighting the war profiteers. Later, his ad promising to put crooks who steal from the taxpayers in prison electrified the blogosphere... and his central Florida congressional district. Last November he shocked the political Establishment by defeating entrenched Republican rubber stamp Ric Keller 172,218 (52%) to 158,717 (48%).

Basically, Orlando went from having a lazy corporate shill who could have just given Dick Cheney his proxy, to being represented by one of the most dynamic, aggressive, intellectually rigorous and incisive members of Congress. Grayson is the freshman class' first star, much to the chagrin of the evil doers who have come before the House Financial Services Committee. And yesterday it was the banksters themselves.

There were 8 haughty crooks sitting at the witness table-- from Morgan Stanley's John Mack to CitiGroup's Vikram Pandit, and Barney Frank got the ball rolling by politely reading them the riot act: "There is in the country a great deal of anger about the financial institutions, including those represented here... We have no option if we are to get credit flowing in this country other than to work with the existing institutions." One got the idea that Frank-- who is at odds with the reactionary Blue Dogs who feel that the government needs to step in and rescue their corporate sugar daddies on Wall Street while we give Main Street the back of our hands-- would have preferred some alternative. Beheadings would have been appropriate-- and a good warning against anyone else who decided to pull off the kind of multi-billion dollar heists these characters seem to be getting away with.

They and others that have taken in billions of dollars in hard-earned taxpayer dollars are widely perceived not to be returning the favor to the nation. Some say they are curbing lending while continuing to dish out millions in executive pay. But they are also the giants of the banking world that lawmakers are counting on to haul the economy back onto its feet.

This “dilemma,” as Mr. Frank described it, led some lawmakers to walk a finer line with the bankers than had been the case with the heads of the Big Three automakers, who have also sought billions in support to shore up their teetering industry.

So, at the first hearing to call banking chiefs to account for how they have spent a collective $165 billion in taxpayer money, the pitchforks were tabled-- for the most part.

...Until recently, none of the banks had disclosed any information on their use of taxpayer money, and they were not required to do so when it was given to them. But in recent weeks, reports of multibillion-dollar bonus pools for bank employees, Super Bowl parties and decked-out corporate jets fueled public outrage about what some view as the government’s largesse.

One lawmaker from Florida, Alan Grayson, said he had received 500 e-mail messages from residents of his district in anticipation of the hearing. One woman suggested that Wall Street bonuses should be used to build new schools. Another said the chiefs of Wall Street should go to jail.

Take a look at Alan going after the wily Pandit (who, by the way, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the GOP-- and to bankster-protector Chuck Schumer). Knowing what he'd like to do, he was being pretty restrained today: