Today's House Financial Services Committee Meeting Will Demonstrate Why Not All Democrats Measure Up

Sleaze bag Sean Duffy is chair of the Financial Services' Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations-- Wells Fargo singled him out for this year's biggest bribe. Wonder why!

Today the most corrupted corner of Congress, the House Financial Services Committee, gets to "question" crooked Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, who Elizabeth Warren made mince-meat out of last week. Don't expect too many serious holding feet to the fire moments today. Members request getting onto the House Financial Services Committee primarily to be in position to be on the receiving end of the most gigantic flow of bribes in the history of Congress. Since 1990 the Financial Sector has doled out $2,375,923,205 in bribes to members of Congress and candidates for Congress. That's 2.3 BILLION dollars in flat-out bribes. And that's not because banksters are civic-minded! The surest way to get on that gravy train is to get on the House Financial Services Committee. Is it any wonder there is so little oversight of Wall Street predators?

The OpenSecrets chart above-- which only covers 2015-16-- shows the 25 Members of the House who have solicited and taken the most in bribery from the banksters. Shockingly-- or, alas, maybe not-- 13 of the most corrupt are members of the committee that's supposed to be keeping the banksters from ripping off the country, 10 typically crooked Republicans and the 3 most corrupt New Dems in Washington: Patrick Murphy (FL), Kirsten Sinema (AZ) and Jim Himes (CT). Some in Washington joke that when the House Financial Services Committee meets there's quorum for a meeting of the Wall Street owned and operated New Dems, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

Thanks to Warren's very public grilling-- flambé-ing?-- of Stumpf last week, on Tuesday Wells Fargo's board of directors announced that they are clawing back $41 million in stock options from the crooked CEO and $19 million from the retired bankster who was directly responsible for the scandal, Carrie Tolstedt. Neither gets a bonus this year and Tolstedt gets no golden parachute severance package. The board also hired a law firm to do an independent investigation. The Labor Department has also launched an investigation of its own. What about the SEC and the Justice Department. What are they waiting for? Sworn affidavits of guilt from Stumpf, Tolstedt and the other top brass at Wells Fargo who ordered the theft of millions of dollars from the bank's customers to boost their annual bonuses?

But who at tomorrow's hearings can we expect any serious oversight from? Certainly not from one of the biggest crooks on the committee of all, Sean Duffy, the head of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Duffy took more in bribes from Wells Fargo this cycle than any other member of the committee-- $15,000 this year alone! His Democratic opponent this year back in Wisconsin's 7th CD, Mary Hoeft, issued a statement to residents of northwest Wisconsin saying that "Sean Duffy, chair of a congressional banking oversight subcommittee, accepted more than $400,000 in political contributions from bankers to use against me in this campaign. At the very least, Sean should have acknowledged the ethical dilemma he faced when accepting money from the bankers he oversees. That doesn't appear to be the case. He is doubling down on his efforts to cripple the Consumer's Financial Protection Bureau, the very agency designed by Elizabeth Warren and others to make sure Big Banks are never able to bring our economy to its knees again--an economy where 7 million Americans lost their homes to bankruptcy." (You can contribute to Mary's campaign to replace Duffy here.)

Will Murphy even show up?

All the Republicans on the committee are Wall Street stooges-- every.single.one.of. them! They will be defending Wall Street with all their might today-- pushing Wall Street's #1 agenda item of destroying the CFPB-- while pretending to be as stern with Strumpf as they sometimes make believe they are with Drumpf. The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, a notorious criminal from Texas named Jeb Hensarling, has taken more in Wall Street bribes than anyone else currently serving in the House other than Speaker Ryan ($7,202,670 for Hensarling and $8,237,251 for the Beltway media's esteemed Speaker). Other members of the Committee you can be sure will either be licking Strumpf's posterior today or laying low are Ed Royce (R-CA- $6,601,798), Jim Himes (New Dem-CT- $5,374,477), Scott Garrett (R-NJ- $4,874,049), Peter Roskam (R-IL- $4,028,343), Steve Stivers (R-OH- $4,026,487), Vice-Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC- $3,760,861), Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL- $3,536,090), and Randy Neugebauer (R-TX-$3,466,470). Other shameless Wall Street hatchet men on the committee include Peter King (R-NY- $2,672,724), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO- $2,275,065), and Frank Lucas (R-OK- $2,066,077).

So who might be worth listening to at the hearings today? Maxine Waters (CA), the ranking Democrat on the committee will probably scorch Wells Fargo and I'd hope that Mike Capuano (MA) and Keith Ellison (MN) get some time. There aren't any other members in that fetid cesspool worth listening to.