Who Won The Elections Last Week? The Banksters, Of Course

Dark money brought down dweeby centrist President Garrett Walker. Like so many post-Citizens United politicians, he was getting laundered political contributions from China. Uregulated capitalism, which isn't only prevalent in the U.S. but has replaced Communism as China's religion, is on the march-- and putting democracy in check is essential. Anyone who thinks this pillars of society can be trusted should take a look at this L.A. Times report from London, filed yesterday, Five Global Banks Fined Over Attempted Currency Manipulation. No one was frog-marched, finger-printed, arrested, jailed... just some fines the poor bilked shareholders will have to see come out of their hides. The pillars culprits were Citibank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC Bank, UBS and Barclays. They agreed to pay $3.4 billion in return for none of their executives going to prison. And bribes to politicians 0f both captured Beltway parties will continue apace.

Regulators in Britain, Switzerland, the U.S. and Asia have been investigating the banks' conduct for months, and negotiating settlements with the banks.

For their part, the banks already had factored in the prospect of heavy fines. Citigroup cited a $600 million charge and JPMorgan Chase & Co., about $400 million.

Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland similarly set aside hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipation of the settlements.

The foreign-exchange scandal again lifts the curtain on misconduct in the banking world and is the latest black eye for big international banks. Five big banks-- including Britain's Lloyds, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland-- have been sanctioned for alleged manipulation of a key global interest rate in a continuing investigation. The five banks together have paid nearly $4 billion in settlements, and several individuals have been criminally charged by U.S. authorities.

The London interbank offered rate, known as LIBOR, is used by banks to borrow from each other and affects trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including mortgages, bonds and consumer loans.

Major Wall Street banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup have each paid billions of dollars in settlements with the Justice Department and other U.S. agencies over their role in selling the toxic mortgage securities that fueled the worst financial crisis since the 1930s and threw millions of homes into foreclosure.

Nothing in there about bribing politicians. Oh, sorry. Mainstream media doesn't report on that. It's like, gross or something-- like talking about Lindsay Graham and Aaron Schock being closet queens. So... of the $188,697,181 the Finance Sector has spent on federal elections this cycle, these dozen House galoots-- every one of them corrupt from head to toe-- are the biggest bankster bribery recipients:

• John Boehner (Speaker)- $3,148,729
• Eric Cantor (former Majority Leader)- $1,855,675
• Jeb Hensarling (Financial Services Committee Chair)- $1,665,486
• Tom Cotton- Financial Services Committee & brand new shiny senator- $1,606,082
• Paul Ryan- Budget Committee chair- $1,523,331
• Kevin McCarthy- Majority Leader- $1,321,625
• Joe Crowley- Ways & Means Committee/vice chair, Democratic caucus- $1,158,168
• Jim Himes- Financial Services Committee, New Dems Vice Chair- $1,120,688
• Scott Garrett- Subcommittee on Capital Markets chair- $1,117,124
• Gary Peters- Financial Services Committee & brand new shiny senator- $1,071,488
• Steve Stivers- Financial Services Committee, ex-bankster- $1,039,970
• Patrick Murphy- Financial Services Committee- $1,028,000

Six right-wing Republican crooks and 4 Wall Street owned New Dems, also crooks... but they write the rules and the laws and the give and take between them and the banksters is carefully written to be outside of the bribery laws. Convenient. Over the weekend, the editors of the NY Times opined that dark money had helped the Republicans win control of the Senate. They want to get rid of as much of Dodd Frank as they can, not to mention the hated-- by banksters-- Consumer Financial Protection Board-- and that will be their payback for the generosity. "The next Senate," they wrote, "was just elected on the greatest wave of secret, special-interest money ever raised in a congressional election. What are the chances that it will take action to reduce the influence of money in politics? Nil, of course. The next Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has long been the most prominent advocate for unlimited secret campaign spending in Washington, under the phony banner of free speech. His own campaign benefited from $23 million in unlimited spending from independent groups like the National Rifle Association, the National Association of Realtors and the National Federation of Independent Business."

Russ Choma, writing for the Center For Responsive Politics' Open Secrets blog, reported on how the rules of big money engagement in politics have changed in a way that threatens the viability of democracy itself.

Republicans made the most of their fundraising advantage and routed Democrats in Tuesday’s midterms, but they seized the majority in the Senate and built their lead in the House even as fewer donors participated in the process and more of the dollars came from secret sources.

Democrats weren’t swamped when it came to the money game, but the GOP clearly had the upper hand. Even where Democrats had raised more in pivotal Senate races, though, they still were mostly beaten. Several key differences between the two sides emerged on the fundraising front, with Democrats increasing their reliance on small donors since 2010 while Republicans turned sharply to big dollar donors.

The real story of the election’s campaign finance chapter was not which side had more resources, but that such a large chunk of the cost was paid for by a small group of ultra-wealthy donors using outside groups to bury voters with an avalanche of spending. Both sides had plenty of support from outside spenders, but Republican and conservative outside groups outpaced the spending of Democratic and liberal ones. Democratic/liberal groups channeled most of their money through organizations that disclosed donors, while their more conservative counterparts relied heavily on secret sources funneling money through political nonprofits.

...What is different is the apparent decline in the number of donors. Just as every election since 1998 has been more expensive than the last comparable one, every election also saw more donors than the one before. It appears the 2014 election will break that chain, with a smaller number of overall individual donors. And the campaigns themselves are projected to spend less money than in the previous election: In 2010, they spent $1.8 billion, and this cycle they are projected to lay out $1.5 billion.

Of the money raised by Senate and House campaigns, CRP’s analysis shows, the bulk still came from individual donors (as opposed to PACs), but Republicans dramatically reduced their reliance on donors who gave $200 or less, while Democrats leaned on them slightly more than in 2010.

...While spending by all outside groups is up, the expenditures by groups that do not disclose some or all of their donors is up most sharply. In 2010, these groups reported spending spent $160.8 million, a figure that jumped to at least $215.6 million this cycle.

And of the $219 million spent by outside groups that are partially or completely nondisclosing this cycle, 69 percent of it has been spent by Team Red.

The race that attracted the largest share of this money was the Colorado Senate contest, which saw $22 million in reported outside outside spending by groups that disclose no donors and $5.3 million from groups that disclose some donors. Outside money spent by fully disclosing groups totaled roughly $27.9 million.

On the House side, Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, where incumbent Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick squared off against challenger Andy Tobin, attracted the most outside spending by nondisclosing groups-- $2.5 million. The bulk of that came from two conservative dark money groups-- American Action Network and Young Guns Network-- which combined to spend a reported $1.6 million, or significantly more than the $1.1 million reported spent by the Tobin’s campaign that both groups supported.

Still not depressed enough? Can I recommend an essay by William Cohan in Politico, Why Wall Street Loves Hillary. Subtitle: She's trying to sound populist, but the banks rare ready to shower her campaign with cash.

While the finance industry does genuinely hate Warren, the big bankers love Clinton, and by and large they badly want her to be president. Many of the rich and powerful in the financial industry—among them, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, Tom Nides, a powerful vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, and the heads of JPMorganChase and Bank of America-- consider Clinton a pragmatic problem-solver not prone to populist rhetoric. To them, she’s someone who gets the idea that we all benefit if Wall Street and American business thrive. What about her forays into fiery rhetoric? They dismiss it quickly as political maneuvers. None of them think she really means her populism. ... Wall Street, above all, loves a winner, especially one who is not likely to tamper too radically with its vast money pot.

By the way, since she ran for the Senate in 2000, the Financial Sector has given her $31,042,633. So they must really like her... or at least feel she's a good investment.