Trump Is Now Doing Damage Control With Southern Voters He Managed To Offend

The Dotard Inquisition

Señor Trumpanzee has been mocking Jeff Sessions as a dumb southerner for some time, thinking no one "outside" would pick up on his bigotry and that his "dumb" supporters in Alabama, the Florida Panhandle, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas and southern Missouri would ever figure out that a snob he is and that what he says about Mexicans publicly is what he says about them behind their backs. It would be fatal for him if they do-- which is why he's been shrieking on Twitter than Bob Bernstein is a Democratic operative and a purveyor of "fake news"-- lies like everything else Trump uses to manipulate his base, especially "dumb" southerners.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Southern Republican senators-- usually Trump's most lock-step ass-kissing enablers and rubber-stamps-- were pushing back. Several explicitly defended Jeff Sessions from the Trump attacks exposed in Fear, Woodward new book. Trump's mockery of southern accents has been an ongoing disgrace that has gone largely unnoticed. Woodward wrote that the illegitimate "president" privately called Sessions a "traitor," saying: "This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner… He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama."

Johnny Isakson (R-GA), obviously seething: "I’m a Southerner. People can judge my intellect, my IQ, by my product and what I produce rather than what somebody else says. We’re a pretty smart bunch. We lost the Civil War, but I think we’re winning the economic war since then… I’m not gonna get into name-calling because I don’t think you should be allowed to call names-- including the president."

 Richard Shelby (R-AL), a long-time friend and colleague of Sessions noted that it would be politically stupid of Trump to denigrate Southerners since they hugely helped elect the president in 2016. "Well, I’m sure I’ve got that accent, wouldn’t you think?... I guess the president-- he says what he thinks... I think the president’s probably got a lot of respect for the South. I hope so. He did well there. Without the South, he wouldn’t be the president of the United States... "I think that’s strong words. I think Sessions is a very smart man and a man of integrity. I would disagree with the president on that."

Trump has been on Twitter calling attention to Woodward's book-- likely making it a best seller-- and defending himself in ways that it will be hard to believe by anyone who isn't already brainwashed by his cult of personality.

But Republican incumbents and and open red seat candidates in the South didn't need this new bullshit from Trump. Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Andy Barr (R-KY), Mark Harris (R-NC), John Culberson (R-TX), French Hill (R-AR), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Will Hurd (R-TX), Karen Handel (R-GA), Denver Riggelman (R-VA), Carol Miller (R-WV), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Scott Taylor (R-VA), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Dave Brat (R-VA) are all in tough districts and none them can afford to lose a couple of points based on Trump being perceived as being a snob against the South. If a percentage point or two is shaved off anyone's totals because people who take offense stay home, these candidates will be even more certain to be defeated in November.

Tomorrow Is Election Day In Alabama. Would Moore Be The Most Vile Man Ever Elected To The Senate? We Already Have the Most Vile President

Tomorrow is election day in Alabama. I'm rooting for Doug Jones. He doesn't just seem better than Roy Moore-- now there's a low bar-- but better than Jon Ossoff too. I bought into Ossoff, contributed some monet to him personally and Blue America endorsed him and raised him some money. So I was pretty disappointed as the race proceeded from when I first talked to him and the guy who persuaded me he was a progressive came increasingly under the sway of Beltway money-men, consultants and strategists who persuaded him to change his tone and going in a less progressive direction-- away from the energy and more towards the conventionally safe ground the DCCC always gravitates to in red districts: Republican-lite. It sickened me that Ossoff raised and spent $29,544,195 (to Karen Handel's $6,163,039), while the DCCC spent another $5,065,390 on him (and Pelosi's House Majority PAC threw in $650,571). In all, outside groups spent around $8 million bolstering Ossoff and outside Republican groups spent over $18 bolstering Handel. Handel beat him 134,799 (51.8%) to 48.2%-- in line with Trump's 48.3% to 46.8% winnower Hillary a few months earlier. Handel did about 3 and a half points better than Trump had and Ossoff, despite all that money, did about a point and a half worse than Hillary (who didn't campaign in GA-06 at all. He was a weak candidate. And Jones, down in Alabama is better-- and far more authentic.

Alabama's senior senator, Republican Richard Shelby, won't be having a very collegial relationship with Roy Moore if Moore wins tomorrow. On State of the Union yesterday, Shelby told Jake Tapper that he voted already-- but not for Moore. "We call it a tipping point. I think, so many accusations, so many cuts, so many drip, drip, drip-- when it got to the 14-year-old's story, that was enough for me. I said I can't vote for Roy Moore." He added that if Moore is elected, the Senate "will have to seat him, and we'll see what happens after that... The Senate has to look at who's fit to serve in the Senate."

Still, Jones very well may win tomorrow. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Moore at 49.1% and Jones at 45.3%, too close to call. The only one of the 7 most recent polls Jones was ahead in was from the Washington Post November 30 that showed Jones leading 50-47%. All the others show Jones winning by between 3 and 7%. But... you know how in normal states, people are often embarrassed to say they plan to vote for a Republican and often lie to pollsters? In Alabama it may be the opposite: people are embarrassed to say they'll vote for a Democrat and lie to the pollsters. We'll see; Republicans could be embarrassed-- should be embarrassed-- to admit they're voting for a child molester.

As of September 22, the last FEC reporting deadline, Jones had spent $9,034,232 and still had $2,543,090 in his campaign warchest and the child molester had spent $4,455,952 and had $636,046 left. Over $7 million has been spent against Moore (mostly by Luther Strange allies in the primary) and $1,529,978 had been spent opposing Jones. A ton of right-wing money has poured into the race in the form of independent expenditures in the last 10 days and we have no figures on that yet.

But if you look on the Blue America Senate endorsement page, you won't find a slot for Jones. We reached out to him the day he announced but he never got back. We reached out a week later and a week after that. People from his campaign even told me at one point they'd get us on the phone together. It never happened. And even though nearly everything I've read about Jones indicated he would be a good candidate, without an interview, I couldn't ask Blue America donors, who expect a degree of vetting, to contribute their money to him (instead of, say, to Tammy Baldwin's reelection campaign or even Beto O'Rourke's race against Ted Cruz). So, like I said, I'm rooting for Jones tomorrow and I'll probably pray for him when I wake up at 4am. But... I didn't contribute my own money, we didn't endorse him and I never asked Blue America donors to send him any money.

That said, I was pretty surprised when I read a critique of Jones from a North Alabama DSA member: Doug Jones is a Terrible Candidate. The DSA member seems to think Jones is not much more than the lesser evil compared to, in her words, the candidate who "is a wretched, disgusting, pedophilic rapist who deserves absolutely no place in any leadership position." Then the big "but." She wrote that "The problem with Doug Jones is revealed not when you point out what he hasn’t done that Roy Moore has, but rather when you look at what Doug Jones says he plans to do, or, as is often the case, not do. At a time when the already abysmal American healthcare system is at threat of being outright gutted by congress, Doug Jones has repeatedly shied away from supporting Bernie Sanders’s Medicare For All plan, and has not backed single-payer healthcare (an immensely popular policy proposal) despite the fact that his very own website states that he believes “Health care is a right, not a privilege limited to the wealthy and those with jobs that provide coverage.” Jones has also shied away from dedicating himself to supporting a $15 livable wage, again, despite the fact that his own website says that he “strongly support[s] ensuring working Alabamians receive a living wage for their hard work.” And, in a time when the college debt crisis is racking up in the trillions of dollars, he has not endorsed any sort of tuition-free college education program, despite--  and I know this is getting tiresome--  his own website stating that “Providing a quality education to all children is the key to a long-term thriving economy.”

[L]ooking at Doug Jones’s campaign website is an enlightening look into the extent of his tiptoeing mediocrity. Clicking the “Priorities” section immediately greets you with a phrase that thrusts into your face Jones’s nauseating fetishization of respectability politics: “Bring integrity back to Washington.” Moving on from the meaningless blurb that is that sentiment is the “Economy” section of this page which starts out with the very telling phrase “Small businesses are truly the backbone of the American economy.” This, despite the fact that workers, not businesses, are the backbone of any economy, and that American workers are continually laboring longer and harder for less and less pay while the capitalists who own these businesses are making more and more, is what Doug Jones feels is most important to state first in his campaign website’s “Economy” section.

Going back to respectability politics; Doug Jones loves it. A lot. It is difficult to hear Jones speak for more than thirty seconds without him mentioning “bipartisanship” or “reaching across the aisle.” Jones cares so much about respecting the “other side of the issues” that his campaign put out an ad that described the Civil War as “two sides believing so strongly in their cause that they were willing to die for it”, and citing the example of a Confederate and a Union General coming together as a virtuous act that should be encouraged. One must think hard about what exactly Jones is willing to compromise on if he sees shaking hands with a General who fought for the preservation of chattel slavery as even a possibility.



The Civil War ad is not the Jones campaign’s only advertising misstep. In a move that garnered some national headlines, the Jones campaign decided it appropriate to mail out fliers that read “Think if a black man went after high school girls anyone would try to make him a senator?” with the picture of a black man underneath. Being that it was a flier that was clearly indicative of some racialized thinking of its creator, there was justified backlash to it--  many calling blatantly racist.

It would seem as if the Democratic Party of Alabama decided to back not only one of the most mediocre and uninspiring candidates possible in a time of strong populist sentiments, but also a candidate who is too racially insensitive to run ads that don’t glowingly reference Civil War “compromise” or spit directly in the face of the black community.

Come election day, Alabamians will have the sacred honor of participating in the democratic process by voting for either a child rapist or a weak-kneed white blob in a suit to go work on Capitol Hill for some unknown corporate donor. Personally, I can’t say that I will be taking part.

OK, since she brought up "sacred," I'll definitely pray when I wake up tomorrow morning and ask Jesus to grant Alex the wisdom to do the right thing and vote to help the guy who prosecuted the KKK terrorists get into the Senate instead of the deranged Trumpist who would be working to harm her every single day in every single way. But... a nice new poll from, of all places, Fox News. This looks like a very wide margin-- and is at odds with all the other polls we've looked at. Fingers crossed! We'll see how accurate they were mañana, won't we?

Is Dickie "Oink! Slurp! Gobble!" Shelby high-living, self-important garbage? Sure, but what's your point?

Oink! Slurp! Gobble! Dickie Shelby has an important role to play -- to make the world safe for even lowlier right-wing scum.

by Ken

So why shouldn't Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby be chairman of the Banking Committee? Just because he's an ideologically scumbag who spends his available time stuffing his maw with deluxe eats paid for either by gummint or campaign contributors? I guess the argument for surrendering control of the Senate to Republicans would go something like:

"It's Time to Let the Other Crooks Slop Their Gizards"

Surely the banksters Dickie Oink could become responsible for overseeing must be drooling at the prospect of being overssen by their high-living whore.

This Washington Post "In the Loop" report by Colby Itkowitz dates back a few days, but now comes with a "response" -- I think when you read the "response" you'll see what I feel obliged to put the word "response" in quotes) -- from Senator Shelby's office. I guess the senator's office realized they couldn't simply leave the item uncommented on, but the comment is so grotesquely unresponsive that maybe that would have been wiser. To the extent that this is a response, the response is, "Who says Out Dickie doesn't share the loot?"

Or maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the folks in DC Land have become so blasé about the kind of high-living shitbagging reported here that they think all that's necessary is a pro forma response that makes it "asked and answered." Maybe it would be different if the senator was actually a candidate in this cycle, and might thereby suffer some embarrassment if this sort of thing became known among his constituents. Short of that, however, maybe they think nobody gives a rat's ass.

In The Loop
Sen. Shelby eats and travels in style on campaign and PAC funds, but doesn’t share

By Colby Itkowitz

Sen. Richard Shelby, who could become chairman of the Senate banking committee if the GOP wins the Senate this election, enjoys top-dollar restaurants and swanky hotel stays. And since 2008 he’s reimbursed himself and his wife from his campaign and leadership PACs more than half a million dollars to live the high life.

The Alabama Republican was recently called out by the Wall Street Journal as a stingy lawmaker who hoards contributions and doesn’t share with his more vulnerable colleagues. Now an analysis by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) shows that Shelby is spending that money to treat himself and donors to upscale dinners at Washington establishments, such as The Palm, Bobby Van’s Grill, The Source, Charlie Palmer’s Steakhouse, Citronelle, Bourbon Steak and the Capital Grille.

And where does Shelby rest his head when traveling for campaign events? In New York City, he has expensed stays 32 times at the Michelangelo Hotel, where, according to its Web site “flair meets function. The eclectic meets the everyday.” He has stayed at the “legendary seaside resort” Hotel del Coronado in San Diego and at the four-star Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans, CREW reports.

“I don’t think most of Senator Shelby’s constituents are spending so much time in the lap of luxury. Here he is raising money and spending it mostly on himself,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW.

Shelby’s office did not immediately return requests for comment.

Spending contributions this way is not illegal, but it does raise eyebrows. Shelby is sitting on $17 million, according to his last FEC filing, and isn’t up for reelection until 2016. Also, he’s won reelection without breaking a sweat for the last two decades. In 2010, he won with 84 percent of the vote.

“When you start looking at how much money he’s spending, it’s significant for a guy without a race,” Sloan said. Shelby is “asking for money, and people think they are giving money to promote a certain agenda. But they are promoting a senator’s cushy lifestyle.”

UPDATE: Shelby’s communications director sent us this response:

“Senator Shelby has always actively supported his Republican colleagues’ reelection campaigns as well as the NRSC’s efforts to raise funds in order to help Republicans win back the Senate.  Just like virtually every other Member of Congress, Senator Shelby travels and attends fundraising events – and he does so in order to help the NRSC and contribute to his Republican colleagues.  Specifically, Senator Shelby has donated the maximum amount from his Leadership PAC, Defend America, to 30 Republican Senate candidates this election cycle. Senator Shelby has also both attended and headlined NRSC fundraising events, including one event that he personally organized this past week in Huntsville, Alabama, that raised approximately $800,000.”

I make no apology for Democratic shitbags, but Republican ones are not only more common -- I'm inclined to say universal -- but shittier. There are hardly any life forms more vile than those Republicans from the Deep South, and Shelby is nothing but high-living, America-hating garbage.

I wonder if people like Shelby understand, though, behavior like this is not okay with their right-wing base. Of course they're listening to every-bit-as-vile shitbags like Rafael "Ted from Alberta" Cruz, but they're coming to understand how they have been betrayed by garbage like Shelby. Not that it will help degarbagify the Senate or anyplace else. The Right just sends scummier shitbags into battle.

#

The Idiocracy Files (Redux), Part 5: The U.S. $enate Meets with Its Landlord

[We continue our encore presentation of Noah's Idiocracy series. And don't forget Noah's new "Need a last-minute Christmas gift suggestion?," "50 Years Ago Today: The Beatles," and "A Tale of Two Popes -- the one in the Vatican and the one in North Carolina."]

"And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And, frankly, they own the place."

-- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), May 2009

by Noah

On June 13 of this year, almost exactly three years after the above quote from one of the few of the more honest men in Washington, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee gave us more of what Congress does best: a classic dog-and-pony show, a farce meant for public consumption, to be cut down, shined up and packaged for the nightly news by Washington's media accomplices.

The special guest star attraction this time was Jamie Dimon, chairman, president, and CEO of J. P. Morgan-Chase, a creature who is so warped that he can actually say, even on national TV, that he has no idea why he is so unpopular with the American public, and say it with a straight face. Gee, all he (and his bankster cohorts) did was bring the world economy to the brink of total collapse, ruin lives that are of no consequence to him, make a profit on such actions, and then hold up the taxpayers for even more of their hard-earned money. What a swell guy!

So it' was about time that this dark lord of the financial world got called on the carpet by the people in Washington who look out for us, right? You know, the people we elect to represent us? Yeah, well, somewhere between your voting booth and the Capitol building, the $enate's mission changed. Fancy that!

Hence the farce back in June when Dimon Jamie arrived for his stern, harsh, and even brutal questioning by our senators, brutal enough to remind one of the Spanish Inquisition -- or, well, perhaps something milder. Let's take a look at some of the harsh inquisitors and some highlight quotes that will show what a nasty day Dimon had. These guys didn't just remind me of Idiocracy. A famous Monty Python sketch also came to mind.



AND NOW, THE BRUTAL, INHUMAN $ENATE INQUISITORS!

1. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)

"You're obviously renowned -- rightly so, I think -- as one of the best CEOs in the country. . . . You missed this. It's a blip on the radar screen."

A blip! Four billion dollars lost in speculative derivative trading is a blip? That's right, the score was up to $4 billion as of the "hearing." Originally Dimon told the country that his company's loss was $2 billion. Now it looks like it may be as high as $7 billion. Pocket change. Either the guy is a pathological liar or he is grossly incompetent. Makes me wonder if his great-grandfather was the captain of the Titanic.

2. Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID)

"One of the tensions we face here is that we wanna be sure that we are adequately regulating our financial institutions, but we wanna be sure also that we basically don't have the regulators running our private sector institutions . . . and again, what should the function of the regulators be."

Unbelievable! Crap-boy is asking Dimon what the function of the regulators should be. If this assclown had a farm, he'd be asking the foxes what their role in guarding the chicken coop should be.

3. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Now this guy is well-known for being a world-class asswipe. Let's see what this genius from South Carolina, now moved on to run the Heritage Society, had to say.

"I would like to come away from the hearing today with some ideas on, uh, what you think we need to do."

Gee, I wonder what Jamie Dimon thinks! Why, it wouldn't shock me if he just came out and said, "I think we need to do nothing. Does nothing work for you?" After all, four years have now passed since the crash and "nothing" is what Washington has done, simply because, as Senator Durbin said, the $enate is owned by the banks. They got off even easier than BP.

No lesson will be learned. Expect a bigger crash eventually, and expect these bribe-taking cretins to say publicly that they just didn't see it comin' and who could have possibly predicted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? It'll be like Condoleezza Rice saying that no one could have imagined terrorists flying planes into the WTC.

4. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)

What does the renowned racist from Alabamy say?

"Would you feel better in a closed hearing?"

I can imagine what that would be like: laughs, drinks, K Street-provided lap dancers, and envelopes of cash for all. Who wants another round?

* * * * * 

Crapo and Corker? Ya just can't make these names up. They're like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. It gets better. Crapo's No. 1 "campaign contributor"? J. P. Morgan-Chase. Corker's No. 1? Goldman-Sachs. Not to worry, his No. 2 is Morgan.

To be fair, and I always want to be fair, I've only called attention to the four worst of the grand inquisitors. After the committee was through wasting our time, Dimon even thanked $enator Corker for such easy questions, right out in the open; no shame, plenty of arrogance. Makes me wonder what kind of handouts were given out after the show. Were there any briefcases left behind in the Senate that day?

Of course, if it was up to me, the majority of the $enate would all be fitted for orange jump suits, or better yet salted up and dragged through glass after going before a judge, if you could find a judge that hadn't also been paid off by the same "campaign contributors."  Ask yourself who has damaged this country more, Al Qaeda or the Wall Street criminal element and their Washington enablers? Who is even responsible for more deaths? I have no doubt that if Jerry Sandusky gave $enators the same kind of money as the banksters, they'd treat him the same.

Money buys a lot of ass-kissing in Washington. Sure, we already knew that. It's just that Washington business is getting done in a much more brazen manner these days, as evidenced by the June 2012 inquistition of Jamie Dimon. Ever wonder what the janitors use to clean the slimy ooze from the Capitol floor and furniture every night?

JAMIE DIMON: I think that no matter how good you are, how competent people are, you never, ever get complacent in risk. Challenge everything. . . .

Yeah, Dimon. You are so good. What a great guy! Not. Great smirk too. Try arrogant creep, for starters. Yeesh. We've already seen how money can buy infinite heaps of arrogance by observing the likes of Romney. How many more of these arrogant, insensitive crap-spewers do we have to put up with before the combined rage and indignation of the world just says enough and heaves these a-holes into the shark-infested waters off their Cayman Islands? I'd like to see if the sharks would even touch them.

To his credit, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who actually tried to grill Dimon and even reminded him that "this is not your hearing" when Dimon arrogantly tried to talk over his questions, made an attempt to do the people's business, but, as we know, the majority of the Democrats aren't much better.

Our corporatist President Obama, in a May interview on The View, called Dimon "one of the smartest bankers we've got" and called Morgan "one of the best-managed banks there is." Obama went on to say that even smart people make mistakes. True enough, but ideally they don't lie about the size of the mistake every time a microphone is placed in front of their face, oath or not. Besides, no one ever said bad guys weren't smart sometimes.

Now there's talk that Dimon might be the clown that replaces Tim Geithner as Treasury secretary. More of that fox-guarding-the-chickens stuff. Ain't Washington grand?

Lots of people say the problem with Washington can only be solved if we somehow get the money out of politics. Of course, there isn't much chance of that happening when the people that make the laws are the same ones that take the cash. If any progress is to be made before the 2014 elections in increasing the awareness of just how low Washington has sunk, there is a lot of work to be done.

THE IDIOCRACY FILES

The world of Mike Judge's 2006 film Idiocracy, projected for 500 years into the future, arrives 494 years early!

"As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent, but as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution doesn't necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species."

-- The Narrator, Idiocracy

Part 1: 2012: The Year That Idiocracy Moments Broke the Scale
Part 2: More Idiocracy Moments for 2012
Part 3: Republicans Seek to Create a New Country. It's Called Crackpotopia!!!
Part 4: Special Arkansas Edition
Part 5: The U.S. $enate Meets with Its Landlord

#

The Idiocracy Files, Part 5: The U.S. $enate Meets with Its Landlord

"And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And, frankly, they own the place."

-- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), May 2009

by Noah

On June 13 of this year, almost exactly three years after the above quote from one of the few of the more honest men in Washington, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee gave us more of what Congress does best: a classic dog-and-pony show, a farce meant for public consumption, to be cut down, shined up and packaged for the nightly news by Washington's media accomplices.

The special guest star attraction this time was Jamie Dimon, chairman, president, and CEO of J. P. Morgan-Chase, a creature who is so warped that he can actually say, even on national TV, that he has no idea why he is so unpopular with the American public, and say it with a straight face. Gee, all he (and his bankster cohorts) did was bring the world economy to the brink of total collapse, ruin lives that are of no consequence to him, make a profit on such actions, and then hold up the taxpayers for even more of their hard-earned money. What a swell guy!

So it' was about time that this dark lord of the financial world got called on the carpet by the people in Washington who look out for us, right? You know, the people we elect to represent us? Yeah, well, somewhere between your voting booth and the Capitol building, the $enate's mission changed. Fancy that!

Hence the farce back in June when Dimon Jamie arrived for his stern, harsh, and even brutal questioning by our senators, brutal enough to remind one of the Spanish Inquisition -- or, well, perhaps something milder. Let's take a look at some of the harsh inquisitors and some highlight quotes that will show what a nasty day Dimon had. These guys didn't just remind me of Idiocracy. A famous Monty Python sketch also came to mind.



AND NOW, THE BRUTAL, INHUMAN $ENATE INQUISITORS!

1. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)

"You're obviously renowned -- rightly so, I think -- as one of the best CEOs in the country. . . . You missed this. It's a blip on the radar screen."

A blip! Four billion dollars lost in speculative derivative trading is a blip? That's right, the score was up to $4 billion as of the "hearing." Originally Dimon told the country that his company's loss was $2 billion. Now it looks like it may be as high as $7 billion. Pocket change. Either the guy is a pathological liar or he is grossly incompetent. Makes me wonder if his great-grandfather was the captain of the Titanic.

2. Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID)

"One of the tensions we face here is that we wanna be sure that we are adequately regulating our financial institutions, but we wanna be sure also that we basically don't have the regulators running our private sector institutions . . . and again, what should the function of the regulators be."

Unbelievable! Crap-boy is asking Dimon what the function of the regulators should be. If this assclown had a farm, he'd be asking the foxes what their role in guarding the chicken coop should be.

3. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Now this guy is well-known for being a world-class asswipe. Let's see what this genius from South Carolina, now moved on to run the Heritage Society, had to say.

"I would like to come away from the hearing today with some ideas on, uh, what you think we need to do."

Gee, I wonder what Jamie Dimon thinks! Why, it wouldn't shock me if he just came out and said, "I think we need to do nothing. Does nothing work for you?" After all, four years have now passed since the crash and "nothing" is what Washington has done, simply because, as Senator Durbin said, the $enate is owned by the banks. They got off even easier than BP.

No lesson will be learned. Expect a bigger crash eventually, and expect these bribe-taking cretins to say publicly that they just didn't see it comin' and who could have possibly predicted, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? It'll be like Condoleezza Rice saying that no one could have imagined terrorists flying planes into the WTC.

4. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)

What does the renowned racist from Alabamy say?

"Would you feel better in a closed hearing?"

I can imagine what that would be like: laughs, drinks, K Street-provided lap dancers, and envelopes of cash for all. Who wants another round?

* * * * * 

Crapo and Corker? Ya just can't make these names up. They're like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. It gets better. Crapo's No. 1 "campaign contributor"? J. P. Morgan-Chase. Corker's No. 1? Goldman-Sachs. Not to worry, his No. 2 is Morgan.

To be fair, and I always want to be fair, I've only called attention to the four worst of the grand inquisitors. After the committee was through wasting our time, Dimon even thanked $enator Corker for such easy questions, right out in the open; no shame, plenty of arrogance. Makes me wonder what kind of handouts were given out after the show. Were there any briefcases left behind in the Senate that day?

Of course, if it was up to me, the majority of the $enate would all be fitted for orange jump suits, or better yet salted up and dragged through glass after going before a judge, if you could find a judge that hadn't also been paid off by the same "campaign contributors."  Ask yourself who has damaged this country more, Al Qaeda or the Wall Street criminal element and their Washington enablers? Who is even responsible for more deaths? I have no doubt that if Jerry Sandusky gave $enators the same kind of money as the banksters, they'd treat him the same.

Money buys a lot of ass-kissing in Washington. Sure, we already knew that. It's just that Washington business is getting done in a much more brazen manner these days, as evidenced by the June 2012 inquistition of Jamie Dimon. Ever wonder what the janitors use to clean the slimy ooze from the Capitol floor and furniture every night?

JAMIE DIMON: I think that no matter how good you are, how competent people are, you never, ever get complacent in risk. Challenge everything. . . .

Yeah, Dimon. You are so good. What a great guy! Not. Great smirk too. Try arrogant creep, for starters. Yeesh. We've already seen how money can buy infinite heaps of arrogance by observing the likes of Romney. How many more of these arrogant, insensitive crap-spewers do we have to put up with before the combined rage and indignation of the world just says enough and heaves these a-holes into the shark-infested waters off their Cayman Islands? I'd like to see if the sharks would even touch them.

To his credit, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who actually tried to grill Dimon and even reminded him that "this is not your hearing" when Dimon arrogantly tried to talk over his questions, made an attempt to do the people's business, but, as we know, the majority of the Democrats aren't much better.

Our corporatist President Obama, in a May interview on The View, called Dimon "one of the smartest bankers we've got" and called Morgan "one of the best-managed banks there is." Obama went on to say that even smart people make mistakes. True enough, but ideally they don't lie about the size of the mistake every time a microphone is placed in front of their face, oath or not. Besides, no one ever said bad guys weren't smart sometimes.

Now there's talk that Dimon might be the clown that replaces Tim Geithner as Treasury secretary. More of that fox-guarding-the-chickens stuff. Ain't Washington grand?

Lots of people say the problem with Washington can only be solved if we somehow get the money out of politics. Of course, there isn't much chance of that happening when the people that make the laws are the same ones that take the cash. If any progress is to be made before the 2014 elections in increasing the awareness of just how low Washington has sunk, there is a lot of work to be done.

THE IDIOCRACY FILES

The world of Mike Judge's 2006 film Idiocracy, projected for 500 years into the future, arrives 494 years early!

"As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent, but as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution doesn't necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species."

-- The Narrator, Idiocracy

Part 1: 2012: The Year That Idiocracy Moments Broke the Scale
Part 2: Beware the Girl Scouts, Sheldon Adelson, and more
Part 3: Republicans Seek to Create a New Country. It's Called Crackpotopia!!!
Part 4: Special Arkansas Edition
Part 5: The U.S. $enate Meets with Its Landlord

#

Boehner Is Under Attack Again-- From The Lunatic Fringe In His Own Party, i.e., Most House Republicans

Early today, Wall Street Journal reporters Janet Hook and Naftali BenDavid gave America a startling peek into Friday's contentious closed-door meeting of House Republicans. This is what happens when your party elects a slew of Know Nothings. Boehner's crackpot causus is now split over extending a payroll-tax cut to millions of American families. Most of these freaks are willing to stick it to working families unless the Democrats agree to more costly and un-needed tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires. Boehner can't get the freaks back on the reservation. And Miss McConnell is having the same problem in the Senate.

GOP leaders are wary of ending a popular tax break amid a weak economy, but many of the party's rank-and-file doubt its effectiveness and are concerned about short-term tinkering with the tax code. The split marks a change from a year in which Republicans were generally united and held the upper hand on budget issues.

The debate centers on a temporary, two-percentage-point cut in the tax wage earners pay to fund Social Security. It was enacted as a part of an anti-recession package last year and expires Dec. 31. Leaders of both parties have proposed an extension, arguing it would be bad economic policy-- and bad politics-- to allow taxes to go up as the economy struggles.

Democrats find the tax debate providing a long-sought political advantage. "[Republicans] are totally disoriented right now," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), "because they are not used to being on the losing side of a tax debate."

...The tax issue is the latest in which conservatives [they mean fascists; Boehner's faction are the conservatives but you know the Wall Street Journal] are flexing their muscles. A separate dispute is also under way over funding levels for the 2012 federal budget. A short-term spending bill expires in two weeks, and congressional negotiators are working to write legislation to fund agencies for the remainder of the fiscal year. Somewhat unexpectedly, the total spending levels are now in question.

The White House and congressional Republicans agreed earlier to set discretionary spending at $1.043 trillion for the year that began in October. They also agreed to add dollars for disaster relief that total about $11.3 billion for the fiscal year.

Some more-conservative [fascist] Republicans are challenging those figures, saying they represent maximum spending levels and that Congress is free to appropriate less. Other Republicans say they should stick to the levels agreed upon with Democrats.

"We can only work with the numbers we're given. And those are the numbers we're working with," said Rep. Michael Simpson (R., Idaho) of the House Appropriations Committee.

On the tax question, both Mr. Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) have said the break should be extended, but that its cost should be offset with spending cuts.

Mr. McConnell's plan, which would have paid for the tax break by cutting federal-government employee rolls, was rejected by the Senate, with 26 mostly conservative Republicans voting against him because they believed it was more important to cut the deficit than to extend a temporary tax break.

Mr. Boehner met similar opposition Friday when he outlined a plan to address a range of year-end policy issues. It also would extend emergency unemployment benefits that expire Dec. 31, despite strong opposition from conservatives [fascists] who believe the benefits discourage people from looking for work.

To reinforce his party's commitment to reducing the deficit, Mr. Boehner proposed offsetting the roughly $200 billion cost of the bill with a menu of spending cuts, including a hiring freeze on federal workers.

Mr. Boehner argued that Republicans would pay a steep political price if the tax breaks and benefits weren't extended. His message: "It's not perfect, but we can stop a tax hike and cut spending," said his spokesman, Michael Steel. Another Republican paraphrased the speaker's message in blunter terms: "If you think we can get away without doing this, you are crazy."

In presenting his proposal, Mr. Boehner collided with the faction of conservatives [fascists] who have bedeviled his leadership on a range of issues this year. "There was a lot of pushback," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R.,Ariz.), who said he and other conservatives [fascists] argued it was irresponsible to pay for a one-year tax break with spending cuts that would take 10 years to collect.

With Republicans tearing each other apart over tax policy, this evening the White House released a new report on the Importance of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director, another victim of mindless Republican obstructionism. The Administration is trying to make a point about the real consequences for real consumers if the Republicans just keep blocking the nomination of Richard Cordray.

A little over a year ago, the President overcame the fierce lobbying from the financial industry and signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The new law put in place reforms that reduce excessive risk-taking on Wall Street, as well as protections that encourage a strong, stable financial system that can support sustained economic growth.

The Act also established the strongest consumer protections in our history, for the first time charging one agency-- the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)-- with the responsibility of protecting and educating Americans who use financial products. Implementation of Wall Street Reform and the stand-up of the CFPB have already started transforming our financial system and benefiting consumers by ensuring that financial service providers compete on the basis of the services they provide and not on hidden fees or other harmful practices.

However, one of the most important components of Wall Street reform is putting in place a Director of the new CFPB. It is only with a Director that the CFPB can exercise its full authorities and make good on the consumer protection goals of Wall Street Reform. Without a Director, the CFPB cannot fully supervise non-bank financial institutions such as independent payday lenders, non-bank mortgage lenders, non-bank mortgage servicers, debt collectors, credit reporting agencies and private student lenders. Without a Director, Americans will not be protected from falling prey to many of the harmful practices that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

CFPB’s inability to exercise its full authority while it awaits a Director affects the lives and financial security of tens of millions of American families who rely on non-bank financial institutions for their financial needs. Indeed, whether it is shopping for a mortgage or private student loan, or having one’s credit report used in a lending decision, many middle class families are reliant upon non-bank financial actors.

A CFPB without its full authorities is also hamstrung in its ability to help level the playing field between small banks and nonbank financial service providers. For too long, banks were playing by one set of rules, while other parts of the financial industry, like some payday lenders or independent mortgage brokers, were playing by another, often with little or no oversight.

The report goes on to outline the role that these non-bank actors have in affecting the lives of typical American families. It documents the degree to which middle class families rely on non-bank financial institutions; highlights some of the harmful, non-transparent practices that consumers could fall victim to in these markets; and explains that these practices will continue to exist without comprehensive federal oversight as long as the CFPB lacks a Director. What they're doing is telling voters that the ball is in the Republicans' court. A number of Republicans have indicated that they will vote to confirm Cordray, the respected former Attorney General of Ohio. Even Wall Street abject puppet Scott Brown (R-MA) has said he will vote for confirmation. But another bankster puppet, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, who has taken $6,242,680 in legalistic bribes from the financial sector that he-- as head of the Senate Banking and Housing Committee-- is charged with overseeing, says he will nomination the bill to death. Shelby leads the fanatic right-wing criminals who oppose any regulation of the financial institutions that have destroyed the American economy. Obama needs 60 votes to get through the Republican filibuster. Even if every Democrat votes for cloture, it doesn't seem possible they can find enough Republicans to stand up for working families and consumers instead of for banksters.

Oops! When your policy is to block every nomination, eventually someone you're blocking is bound to win a Nobel Prize

The 2010 Economics Nobelists

"[T]he same Senators cheerfully confirmed Bush nominees who didn't know much about economics of any kind."

-- Paul Krugman, in an August blogpost
about GOP obstruction of economist Peter Diamond's
nomination to the Federal Reserve Board

by Ken

In a way you almost have to feel sorry for "Clueless Dick" Shelby and his band of confederates in the Party of No. I mean, let's just say, hypothetically speaking, that you decide to "just say no," senatorially speaking, to the confirmation of every executive appointment sent from the White House. What are the odds that one of those suckers is going to go and win a friggin' Nobel Prize while you've got him cooling his heels?

Actually, considering just how many nominations the Nopers have blocked, the odds probably aren't that daunting. With a group of that size, I also wouldn't bet against one of them finding a cure for cancer, or --

Here's how economics Nobelist Paul Krugman greeted the news Monday on his blog:

Yay Peter!

My former colleague Peter Diamond, along with Dale Mortenson and Chris Pissarides, has won the Nobel. Richly deserved. The prize is for work on frictions in markets, which is very important stuff; but Peter, an incredibly profound thinker, has done much much more.

And yes, this is the same Peter Diamond whose nomination to the Fed board has been held up because of Republican doubts about his qualifications.

The "Republican doubts about his qualifications" link is to an earlier Krugman blogpost:

August 6, 2010, 11:55 AM
Peter Diamond, Macro Maven

This is disgusting: Senate Republicans holding up Peter Diamond's nomination to the Federal Reserve Board on the grounds that he may not be qualified to make monetary policy. Aside from the fact that the same Senators cheerfully confirmed Bush nominees who didn't know much about economics of any kind, this is especially stupid right now.

Why? Because right now one of the hot topics is whether the apparent shift in the Beveridge curve signals a rise in structural unemployment -- and Diamond wrote the seminal paper on the whole subject -- the top result on Google scholar.

Diamond is exactly the man we need -- which, given the way things have been going lately, probably means he won’t get confirmed.

Update: Some commenters note, correctly, that there’s an ongoing dispute over what the rise in vacancies without a corresponding fall in unemployment means. But that’s precisely the point: we want Peter Diamond, who pioneered the whole study of this subject, in the Fed, where he can help make sense of the situation.

The "This is disgusting" link is to a Bloomberg report:

Obama Fed Board Pick Diamond Gets Referred Back to White House by Senate

By Scott Lanman and Laura Litvan - Aug 6, 2010 6:19 PM ET

The Senate sent the nomination of Peter Diamond, one of President Barack Obama’s three nominees for the Federal Reserve Board, back to the White House because of objections from at least one lawmaker.

The office of the executive clerk of the Senate said the procedural move occurred as part of actions taken on nominees without debate before the chamber left for a summer break. Obama is likely to resubmit Diamond’s nomination, an administration official said. . . .

Apparently there's more to the Diamond story. It seems maybe Senator Shelby wasn't so much questioning Diamond's qualifications as playing political tit-for-tat. Ezra Klein wrote yesterday on his washingtonpost.com blog:

Diamond and Kroszner

According to the New York Times, Republicans are blocking Nobel Prize-winning economist Peter Diamond's nomination to the Federal Reserve Board "in retaliation for a refusal by Democrats to give a full 14-year term to Randall S. Kroszner, who served on the Fed board from 2006 to 2009." Tyler Cowen would like to see this mentioned more often.

MarketWatch says "Kroszner was the Fed's point-man on consumer lending and mortgage matters, a position that led to conflict with Dodd." [Dodd, in case you've forgotten him already, is now-outgoing Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd.] Moreover, Kroszner's term would've been for 14 years, and Dodd argued that a decision of that length should go to the president about to enter office, not the unpopular leader about to leave it. But the bottom line seems to be this: The Democrats, who held the majority at that point, did not want to confirm Kroszner. George W. Bush did not, to my knowledge, offer up a second candidate.

Of course, Republicans can't say they're obstructing Diamond -- remember, they're in the minority here -- because they're still annoyed over Kroszner. So instead, we're getting this ridiculous dance in which Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) questions the qualifications of a Nobel Prize-winning economist. And Democrats will of course extract payback next time they're in the minority and the Republicans want to move some Fed nominees.

There's no good argument here for further delaying Peter Diamond's nomination. There's a very good argument, however, for either running fewer nominations through the Senate, or radically revamping the process by which the Senate considers -- or doesn't consider -- nominations.

I'm a little fuzzy here as to what exactly Ezra means by "running fewer nominations through the Senate." If I'm reading right, he's talking about changing the constitutional system of executive appointments. (Or can we legislatively slash the number of appointments that require Senate confirmation?) And then he suggests considering "radically revamping" the confirmation system.

Still, you have to hope "Clueless Dick" Shelby is feeling some heat. While a case can certainly be made that the whole point of a 14-year appointment is to leapfrog multiple presidential administrations, there is surely at least a legitimate question as to how late in an administration a president ought to be making such an appointment. Of course "Clueless Dick" doesn't engage in that discussion. He simply uses his senatorial clout to whipsaw a nomination in the new administration's first year -- a distinction Ezra seems a little fuzzy on in his rush to suggest that Dems and R's play the same games with presidential nominations.

It would be too much to hope that "Clueless Dick" is feeling as well as looking like a jackass here. As Krugman points out, he routinely rubber-stamped utterly clueless nominess in the Bush era. But then, he is, well, a clueless dick.


SAY, WTF IS BUGGING THIS TYLER COWEN
GUY, AND WHY THE HELL SHOULD WE CARE?

Ezra's Tyler Cowen link, in case you weren't curious enough to click through, is to a Tweet: "Someone should mention that Reps are blocking Diamond as retaliation for earlier Dem. block of a qualified R. nominee." No, I didn't know who Tyler Cowen is either, so I found his (and Alexander Tabarrok's) blog (Tyler's an economist at Georg Mason University -- home, by the way of the Koch brothers' Mercatus Institute; I'm not saying there's any connection, just that it's important to continuously tar everyone at George Mason, especially the economists, with that brush), Marginal Revolution, and glanced at the five posts he devoted to the Economics Nobel awards on Monday -- an announcement of the award to the three economists, individual posts on each, and "Some personal observations on the Prize." (Alexander Tabarrok added a single post.) In Tyler's post devoted to Peter Diamond I did find this:

Here is the bit of most current interest:

On April 29, 2010, Diamond was announced by Barack Obama as one of three nominees to fill the three vacancies then present on the Federal Reserve Board, along with Janet Yellen and Sarah Bloom Raskin.[5] On August 5 the Senate returned Diamond's nomination to the White House, effectively rejecting his nomination. Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Fed, was once a student of Diamond.

But otherwise -- and I skimmed all the subsequent posts as well -- I found nary a mention of "Reps blocking Diamond as retaliation for earlier Dem. block of a qualified R. nominee." Let me see if I've got this straight then. According to our Tyler, "someone should mention" those dastardly Dem doings -- just not him?

Or is it possible that if he mentioned it, someone might feel obliged to mention why the Dems blocked the R. nominee? (This would presumably have to be someone else, because the T-man doesn't seem to think this part of the story is worth mentioning.) Or maybe there's another Tyler-tweet out there somewhere?

(Note: I realize I'm being disrespectful here to a highly esteemed -- at least by himself -- economist. Hmm. I think I can live with it.)

#

What DON'T The Republicans Plan To UnDo If They Win In November?

Yesterday we released a statement by Justin Coussoule (D-OH) on the difference between his support for middle class tax cuts and John Boehner's insistence that there will be no middle class tax cuts unless the richest 3% of Americans gets billions and billions of dollars in welfare for the wealthy. Earlier today Billy Kennedy (D-NC) drew a similar contrast between himself and the wealthiest member of North Carolina's congressional delegation, self-server Virginia Foxx. And this morning I found this poll the SEIU commissioned that shows broad support for the position Coussoule, Kennedy and most Democrats are taking-- most meaning virtually all with the exception of a kennel's full of mangy, nasty old Blue Dogs on their way to... what's the doggie equivalent of the glue factory?

A majority of voters (55 percent) indicate support for allowing tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest filers, including 40 percent who think that the tax cuts should be allowed to expire for the top earners and another 15 percent who say that all tax cuts should be allowed to expire. This holds true whether the cutoff is $1 million a year or $250,000 a year.

"We need to make this a more fair economy, and that means no more Bush-era tax giveaways to the rich. If we are going to get this country on the right track, we need to create good jobs and put more money in people's pockets. This poll shows that Americans of all stripes agree that working families and small businesses need and deserve a tax cut."

A strong majority in every state polled favors a proposal that replaces tax cuts for those making MORE than $250,000 a year with "lower income taxes for families that make less than 250 thousand dollars a year and provide a series of additional tax cuts and credits to help middle class families pay for child care, save for their kids' college, or afford to buy a home." The plan is also wildly popular with independents.

...A majority of voters think the Bush tax cuts either made no difference on the economy (26 percent) or hurt the economy (27 percent). Only 39 percent think that they have helped the economy, and these respondents are primarily Republican voters (66 percent). A plurality-- 46 percent-- say that the Bush tax cuts made no impact on their personal financial situation. Again, only 39 percent said that the tax cuts were personally good for their families (61 percent Republicans).

This is the winning issue for Democrats-- or at least it would be if the House leadership wouldn't buckle under to a handful of reactionary Blue Dogs who virtually always side with Boehner and the GOP on the big issues and who are worried that if they vote with the Republicans on this one, no Democrats will vote for them in November. Keep in mind as you read this excerpt that when the Inside-the-Beltway press consciously tries to confuse readers by referring to reactionary Blue Dogs as "moderates:"

[T]his issue is shaping up as another one pitting skittish moderates against House liberals, many of whom are urging a vote because they want the party to stand firm on an issue that will motivate the base and draw a sharp contrast between the two parties.

And it seems like the moderates may carry the day.

In recent days there have been indications that the Senate is getting ready to hold their own vote on extending the middle class tax cuts, and it's likely Republicans will successfully filibuster. If that happens, the senior lawmaker involved in the discussions tells me, "that will probably be the end of the discussion."

"The question is whether you have a symbolic vote in the House or let members take it district by district. I'm not sure we could even pass it," the lawmaker says. "People are still taking the temperature of the caucus -- that seems to be where the caucus is."

Three dozen moderate Dems have signed a letter to Dem leaders demanding a vote on extending all the tax cuts. And behind the scenes, they are telling House Dem leaders in no uncertain terms that they don't want a vote focused on just the middle class ones, the sources say. The leadership aide says moderates are complaining that if they take the vote, "they'll be subject to a 30 second ad saying they raised taxes."

I've taken to checking the White House blog whenever I get a chance; you never know what you're going to find on there and last night I found a post by Jen Psaki that resonated.

Yesterday afternoon, Senator Richard Shelby laid out very clearly what Congressional Republicans consider to be one of their major priorities-- rolling back legislation that will provide more security and stability to middle class families, and more accountability to Wall Street. He joins the Republican Leader in the House who promised to try to repeal Wall Street Reform in July.

Senator Shelby wants to go back to a time when there was no such thing as a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and when consumers were left without a voice at the table. This is an agency whose mission is to look out for American consumers and empower them with the clear and concise information they need to make the financial decisions that are best for them. Its existence is enormously important, because one cause of the financial crisis and the Lost Decade for the middle class was the unscrupulous practices of credit card companies and mortgage lenders, who reaped billions at the expense of consumers from hidden fees and penalties.

That's why the President fought so hard for the new CFPB and new rules to outlaw the tricks and traps that have punished the American people. That hard-won victory came over the fierce opposition of Wall Street and the financial industry. But now the man who would be chair of the Senate Banking Committee says that if Republicans win control of the Senate, he will work to gut these new consumer protections.

We hope Senator Shelby is prepared to explain why he feels that way to the millions of Americans who have been misled with pages and pages of fine print on applications for credit cards, mortgages or student loans, and now find themselves in untenable financial situations.

It’s important to understand that when Congressional Republicans talk about re-opening this legislation, they’re talking about standing up for the interests of big banks and their lobbyists and leaving middle class families to fend for themselves.

The Wall Street reform legislation is a clear victory for the American people. It will bring greater economic security to families and businesses across our country by enacting the toughest financial reforms since the ones created in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and by making Wall Street more accountable. And yet Senator Shelby wants to get rid of the progress we made and go back to a system that helped cause the financial crisis.

It’s become very clear that Congressional Republicans do not have any viable solutions to fix our nation’s problems. And the solutions they do offer, like repealing Wall Street reform legislation, will do absolutely nothing to grow our economy, put people back to work and strengthen America’s middle class. Instead, they would take us back to the same exact failed economic policies that created the mess we’re in: cutting rules for the special interests and big corporations and cutting the middle class loose.

And Shelby is less insane than the new crop of Republican extremists trying to get into Congress now, dangerous crackpots like Joe Miller (AK), Christine O'Donnell (DE), Rand Paul (PA), Sharron Angle (NV), Ken Buck (CO), Mike Lee (UT), Carly Fiorina (CA), Rob Portman (OH), Marco Rubio (FL), Ron Johnson (WI) and, perhaps worst of all, Pat Toomey (PA). Worst of all? Yes, the former Wall Street derivatives trader who went on to lead the Greed-Is-Good attack machine known as Club For Growth. The fondest dream of GOP front groups like Club For Growth-- especially Club For Growth-- is the privatize Social Security and abolish Medicare. That's what all these Republicans have in common. They don't want to talk about it, but that's what they're running on, some, like Sharron Angle and Joe Miller, more openly than others.

Blue America is backing a working family type candidate in central Arkansas, Joyce Elliott, a proven progressive leader and a defender of Social Security and Medicare. Her opponent, Karl Rove's shady protégé Tim Griffin, is more in the Sharron Angle/Joe Miller camp of wanting to privatize Social Security entirely, but he's trying to not frighten Little Rock voters by being too vocal about it in public. This is a press release that went out to Arkansas media yesterday from the DCCC:

The conservative Club for Growth, a Washington DC-based backer of Tim Griffin, today issued a fervent call for the risky scheme to privatize Social Security, or to put it in their own words: “Privatize Social Security? Hell Yeah!” Tim Griffin needs to come forward immediately and explain this “hell yeah” approach to privatizing Social Security to Arizona voters.
 
“Today Tim Griffin’s backers in Washington announced a ‘hell yeah’ approach to privatizing Social Security, effectively signing over Arkansas seniors’ retirement benefits to Wall Street,” said Ryan Rudominer, Spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “With Arkansas families losing their savings on Wall Street and seniors struggling to make ends meet, the last thing they need is Tim Griffin subjecting their guaranteed Social Security benefits to the whims of Wall Street.”
 
Had individuals been relying on private Social Security accounts in the stock market during the 2008 collapse, they could have lost nearly 40% of their retirement savings in the 12 months leading up to the collapse.

 

Is Chris Dodd's decision (finally!) to spurn GOP "bipartisanship" on banking reform a harbinger of things to come?

by Ken

News today, as reported on the NYT website by Sewell Chan:

The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, hoping to break a months-long logjam on the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the Depression, will unveil his own proposal on Monday, without yet having a single Republican endorsement.

You want to think that this could be a a breakthrough for Democratic congressional decision-makers: the realization that nothing they can do, no amount of concession, will induce Republicans to support Democratic initiatives that are in any way controversial. After all, the only political "idea" the GOP has going is obstruction: the conviction that it has the power to make Democrats fail in the eyes of the public by making it impossible for Dems to do anything, however beneficial it might be to that public.

Heck, we can take it further: The more beneficial any legislative idea might be to Americans generally, the more it scares the bejezus out of Republican "strategists," who are terrified of Democrats being able to take credit rather than blame for anything.

Of course we on the sidelines have been screaming about this since we began to see signs that the Obama administration was not only uninterested in undoing the toxic legacy of the Bush regime but actually seemed quite comfortable with a wide range of its policies. (I don't think I have to retrace this bit of history for DWT readers.)

And the point we always have to remember about the wreckage-to-date of this session of Congress is that you really can't blame the Republicans. Especially in the time when the Democrats had their at least theoretical Senate supermajority, the problem has been the leadership's inability or unwillingness to deal with its internal ConservaDem blight.

But even that would have depended on the Dems' rare willingness to go it alone, which so far has appeared only as an absolute last resort. Following the lead of the White House, the Dem congressional leadership has positively groveled across the aisle, not to mention to its own Republican Lite members.

The notion currently being peddled to gullible buyers, of which there appear to be an alarming number, especially inside the Beltway, by the biggest liar inside that same Beltway (quite a distinction)!, Master Rahm Emanuel, that the Obama administration's woes are all the result of the president's failure to heed his urges to moderation might be worth discussing if there were recorded instances of the administration paying anything but (usually much-belated) lip service to its progressive constituency.

At some point we've all had to face up to the reality that the progressive legislative agenda we had hoped might be given serious consideration hasn't, not because "we don't have the votes," but because "we don't wanna do it." It's amazing how easy it is to never have the votes for stuff you actually don't want to do.

Which brings us back to Chris Dodd and "the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the Depression." First, an aside to reporter Chan: Might we not want to wait and see what if anything is actually signed into law before announcing this as a fact?

Dodd, we all know, is on his final Senate lap, which inevitably raises the "legacy" question. You always worry when pols take to worrying about their legacy. In theory, it opens the possibility that such a person may finally feel able, if not quite impelled, to act out of principle rather than the usual "what's in it for me?" considerations. However, in practice it usually signals One Last Chance to Cover My Outsize Butt.

And there's been heightened concern in the case of Chris Dodd as Senate point man for this attempted overhaul of banking regulations, given his close ties to the financial services industries. We know the Big Money interests are on the job, in a big way, and as I was suggesting yesterday, in the spirit of "following the money" in evaluating legislative initiatives, the high-pressure effort to sabotage meaningful reform is being felt all over the place, both on and below the radar.

Of course Big Money can always count on Republicans to fight to the (political) death to protect their interests, and the news that Dodd has been huddling these weeks if not months with Tennessee dim bulb Bob Corker has led many of us to fear the worst. It's unclear to begin with, as Timesman Chan notes, why it's Corker rather than Banking Committee ranking member Richard Shelby of Albama whom Dodd has been shacked up with. Not that I think Shelby, another proud son of the Confederacy, would have been a more serious negotiating partner. If anything Shelby, with several extra decades' of Village insiderism under his belt, would have been even more impossible a negotiator, assuming there's such a thing as degrees of impossibility. It's just strange.

Even now, though, the stories are being framed, not in terms of the urgent need for meaningful financial-services reform and the Republicans' lockstep conspiracy to undermine it in any way possible, or in terms of the country's rather visible hostility to the banksters' conniving, but in terms of the wounded feeling of the "bipartisan" Senator Corker. Even now the Right knows how to control messaging with the Village media.

So maybe it really does mean something that Chris Dodd has had enough of phony bipartisanship. To Republicans it's only bipartisan if it's Republicanly partisan.

It's not the only issue, but for both practical and symbolic importance the immediate question of how much independence and authority any Consumer Financial Protection Agency is given is the obvious thing to watch.

Even in the worst-case scenario, where Dodd's committee reports a serious financial reform bill that falls victim to the Senate GOP filibuster buzz saw, at least the Dems will have a meaningful issue to take the voters, offering them a reason to return Dems to Congress. And if other Democratic legislative leaders finally rouse themselves to a serious effort to do what's best for the country, the party might even have, you know, a "platform" on which to run.

#

"Hold 'em All" Dick Shelby and Miss Mitch McConnell: What a team!

While it's surprising to find as savvy an observer as Al Kamen equating single instances of putting a hold on a presidential nominee with what our pal Senator Shelby undertook in the hold arena, Al today offered an interesting update on the playing field. -- Ken

Shelby's 'holds' are good enough for McConnell

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has taken massive incoming fire from Democrats for the past five days for exercising a traditional Senate prerogative. He's blocking about 70 administration nominees in order to try to get an Air Force tanker project -- and thousands of jobs -- for his state and to ensure funding for a counterterrorism center there.

The Democrats, though themselves practitioners of this maneuver in the past, denounced Shelby for holding up all those people for what they called a "parochial issue."

But there were terrorism implications that no one focused on. We're talking military equipment and counterterrorism issues here. Those themes seemed to have been lost in the fuss -- despite an excellent shot by Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo.

"If this administration were as worried about hunting down terrorists as it is about the confirmation of low-level political nominations," he said last week, "America would be a safer place."

Okay. Minor problem. Some of the nominations weren't all that low-level. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) beseeched Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on the Senate floor Thursday to let just four of blocked nominees go forward.

"There are people out there," Reid said, "evil people, trying to do damage to our country every day, every week, every month, every hour." He asked for approval of the nominees for undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness (Clifford L. Stanley), assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research (Philip S. Goldberg), undersecretary of homeland security for intelligence (Caryn Wagner), and a representative to a conference on disarmament (Laura Kennedy).

McConnell refused to let the quartet through. "I wish to indicate that Senator Shelby has been in discussions with the administration over an issue with which I am not terribly familiar, and I believe that is the genesis of his objection," McConnell said, leading us to believe that our more expansive interpretation of Shelby's concerns was incorrect.

"He is not able to be here at the moment to state his position," McConnell said. "Maybe in discussions with him, we can make some progress on these, sooner rather than later, but for the moment I am constrained to object on his behalf."

Tuesday night, the Senate confirmed Stanley and Goldberg, but Wagner's nomination was held up by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Reid said. Kennedy, too, was unable to obtain unanimous consent. Thus they were dead, at least for now.

Unclear whether Shelby made any progress with the White House -- didn't appear so -- but late Monday he lifted holds on all nominees save three whose jobs related directly to the tanker question.

#

Dick Shelby, Caught Like A Rat, Slinks Off Into The Dark

An old acquaintance of mine called today; I hadn't heard from him in a while. He was born a Democrat-- in the Bronx--an old line machine Democrat. His dad was a cog in the machine and wound up a judge. Had this acquaintance not been born into a Democratic family he would certainly be a Republican now. He's rich and doesn't like minorities, not even gays like himself! So instead of being a Republican he's a DLC devotee. I'm not certain what made him call me today. Possibly to just tell me how much he admires Harold Ford's politics, which he went on about at great length; or to say how thrilled he was that Moon's conservative son Mitch was elected mayor of New Orleans. "He can be bought and that's a good thing," he assured me. Or it could have been to tell me how much he dislikes "that crazy radical on MSNBC you probably like." (He meant Olbermann, who he claims is basically the same as Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly but on the left. He was offended when I suggested he gets all his ideas by being brainwashed by getting drunk and watching Fox.)

I watched Keith's show a few hours later. He doesn't sound remotely like Beck or O'Reilly; he deals with facts, not fringy propaganda. Interestingly, right after Keith's comments tonight on Richard Shelby, Shelby sheepishly withdrew his holds on some of President Obama's 70 nominees he's been holding hostage to more funds for his state. (Shelby is the second worst earmark abuser in the Senate, something I never heard any teabaggers crying about.) Anyway, he's that crazy radical on MSNBC explaining it tonight: