In which we elect good guys and still get screwed by the U.S. Senate

And why would Congress, not just the senate, do that? Perhaps it is because, as Ralph Nader and Naderites have been saying for years corporations own Congress. Now we have Democratic Senator Dick Durbin saying, "Banks 'frankly own the place'." But don't pay any attention to Durbin or the evidence. If Nader and his Naderites say that don't pay any attention to them. They are just a bunch of kooks.

Carla:

I don't know what is going on with typepad, but it keeps dropping coding for italics and links.

This - "Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has been battling the banks the last few weeks in an effort to get 60 votes lined up for bankruptcy reform. He's losing.

"On Monday night in an interview with a radio host back home, he came to a stark conclusion: the banks own the Senate." - is from this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/dick-durbin-banks-frankly_n_193010.html

Looks like the Senate is still the place where good House bills go to die.

At least half of our own Senate delegation isn't partly responsible for this, any more.

More on banks calling the shots in Congress at commondreams dot org in today's (May 2) postings:

Danny Schechter on "Banksters on the War Path: How Wall Street Is Fighting Back and Winning Their Fight for the Status Quo"

"Mortgaging the White Hous" by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship (See also "The Clinton Bubble" by Robert Scheer at Truthdig dot com)

Then on health care there is "Inside the Beltway" Baucus by Russell Mokhiber suggesting Democratic Sen. Max Baucus is doing the bidding of the health care industry.

Of course, what should have been one of the most obvious pieces of evidence that Wall Street was calling the shots occurred when Treasury Secretary (and ex-Goldman Sachs CEO)Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke presented their two-and-a-half page request for $700 billion dollars to bailout Wall Street with no oversight and Chairmen Christopher Dodds and Barney Frank lined up their committees to rubber-stamp this larceny and barred any witness from their hearings who might have had dissenting opinions.

I think those 12 senators deserve some special attention over this vote next time they're up for re-election.

I voted for Jeff Anybody-but-Smith Merkley, but if he continues as he did on this issue then next time I'll vote for Jeff Merkley.

This particular bunch of guys here in Oregon seems to be passing laws with unintended consequences on a startlingly regualar basis, and, in my industry, taking Power's word for it instead of searchingly asking the rest of us who share the landscape just what it might ALSO look like...

Interesting snapshot on Obama on the part of The New Yorker: he has DEEPENED our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. And nobody here except the Raging Fringe are holding him responsible.

What's up with that BO mainstreamers? Obama has actually increased our involvement. Also is using the "projected expenses" of prosecuting these wars as a way to report a fake Trillions amount he has/will save us. Bummer.

The New Yorker is reliable about speaking truth to power. From the moment after 9-11 they called Bush the shit he is. And never stopped. So: while many good things have been done, Obama and his people are slipping a war machine hairball past us.

This is an "elected good guys and got screwed" post. I feel we elected good guys and I'm watching people I care for get screwed here at home, noticing that nobody here thinks those particular laws are interesting enough to ask about (medical arena laws are being slogged about really quietly right now - now I'm talking to individual clinics to alert managers to how their bosses politics are actually going to hurt them............) so maybe legislators will hear from people other than doctors not satisfied with $250K+ a year.....; and I'm watching the good guy we are discussing, Obama, talk out of both sides per the few sources I watch.

I think he's a good guy and in one important area, a screwing seems possible. Reframe around the false claim of Trillions saved, will that suffice, Kari?

To clarify Obama's claim that is faux accountancy: his administration tells us they are saving us trillions (cf the New Yorker) in those wars b/c their claims are based on NOT continuing to carry out "surge"-level activities. SO, even as we have increased our involvement commitment, he is claiming to save us lotsa shekels based not on his current actions in the wars, but, rather, on the surge period spending of his predecessor.

Kari, Republicans are not the only politicians who practice that kind of double speak.

Allowing bankruptcy judges the power to make willy-nilly changes to mortgages is unfair and destructive to the concept of binding contracts.

This was bad legislation that deserved to be defeated. It’s an encouraging sign that despite a Dem majority in both houses of Congress there will be some clear thinking to rein in obvious over-reaching by BHO.

Chris:

Many, if not most, of my comments are in response to people talking nonsense. In other cases, as above, I endorse or amplify statements. What do you suggest? That we let people get away with hogwash? On a higher level, do you think investigative journalists should quit? After all, they mostly tell us what we already know. They mainly give us details - variations on a sordid theme.

What was the point in Seymour Hersh telling us about torture and plans to attack Iran if all but a few people on the fringe sit on their butts and say the "government" is just going to do what it wants anyway?

Gore Vidal, despite writing for "The Nation," once said that magazine has little effect. The same could be said for most of the alternative media. It is true that few, if any, of their candidates get elected, but they serve an important role - they keep the candle of hope for a better world alight. Without them, we would only have the mainstream media and their distortions and lies, and the only thing people would understand would be the darkness.

In the early days of African Americans fighting for civil rights, there is no doubt there were plenty of people telling the movement's leaders their efforts were pointless. And they were for a long time, but in the end their goal, at least important parts of it, was achieved.

More germane, you can bet there were many people telling Ralph Nader he couldn't beat General Motors, but he kept his eye on the prize and won. Now he and others aim for a bigger prize - governments - federal, state and local - that will be, if not totally clean then, less corrupt.

When Obama started running for the presidency there were people just ga-ga over him because of his rhetoric. Some of us were skeptical. He has brought some change as he promised, but in other cases he has reneged in important ways. If there were no critical voices then we shouldn't be surprised if he reneged on all his promises.

I don't know about other people considered on this site as Naderites, but in my case I have been influenced by many others outside the mainstream - Walter Karp, I. F. Stone, Mencken among others. Their names still carry a lot of respect, but can you name any hacks who were their contemporaries? Among contemporary writers I'll just name a few that come quickly to mind: Robert Fisk, Pepe Escobar, Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, Alexander Cockburn and many of the contributors to his magazine, CounterPunch. Few, if any, of their preferred candidates will ever be elected to high office, but we are better, and the world is a better place, for them. Even if they are mostly tilting at windmills.

Would anyone suggest to Uri Avnery, Gideon Levy, Amira Hass that it is time for them to stop harping for peace in Israel and Palestine and treating the Palestinians as human beings? After all, the candidates of the far right are the ones that get elected in Israel while the few from the peace section are of little consequence.

My question about those laudable folks you name: do they bitch, bite, rag and deride? Do they rage and punch in words? Or do they eloquently make their cases, with passion, and yet humility and a connective humanity?

We so often roll out names of people we wish we were. Never realizing that just because we admire them does not mean we acquit ourselves in any ways like them.

As some politician said to some other politician... "YOU sir, are NO Jack Kennedy"....

;)

It was a stupid bill and it deserved to go down in defeat. Remember, a lot of what goes on in DC is just CYA. Folks in the House knew that the more responsible guys over in the Senate would kill the bill so they voted freely. Some Senators got free passes with the left wing loonies by voting on it since they knew that other more responsible folks would keep it from passing. Everyone pitched in to keep Obama from having to veto a stupid bill. Same thing happened with the bill to retoactively tax bonuses. The idiots in the House pass it so they can get cheers from the idiot left but then the responsible folks in the Senate kill it so Obama doesn't have to veto. Same old game, been going on a long time.

andy, perhaps you might actually influence the opinions of others if you presented some facts, or some evidence of critical thinking, to back up your arguments. If you actually think that that your little puerile blast serves any purpose whatsoever, outside the context of your own personality disorder, you may need to add yourself to the list of idiots that you have identified.

"In which we elect good guys and still get screwed by the U.S. Senate"

And why would Congress, not just the senate, do that? Perhaps it is because, as Russell Mokhiber at Corporate Crime Reporter, Danny Schechter, Public Citizen, Common Cause, the Center For Responsive Politics, Jim Hightower, and fellow travelers have been saying for years corporations own Congress. Now we have Democratic Senator Dick Durbin saying, "Banks 'frankly own the place'." But few people paid any attention to the aforementioned and few will take note of Durbin's statement while a majority of the American people will continue to re-elect the same people who screwed them in the past so they can screw them again in the future. Guess who was one of the leaders on the Bankruptcy Bill that favored the banks but screwed the people. Clue: Obama's vice president.

"Guess who was one of the leaders on the Bankruptcy Bill that favored the banks but screwed the people. Clue: Obama's vice president.

And guess who voted against the bill? Clue: he's now Vice President Biden's boss."

So, the question now is, who will influence whom when it comes to banking issues? Obama said he would seek counsel from Biden on foreign affairs. Will he also take counsel from Biden on banking matters? Could Biden, Rubin, Summers and Geithner be the Four Horsemen of the Financial Apocalypse while they take care of their friends on Wall Street and in Delaware? We should all hope not, but time will tell.

Dan - I have a question - is there any truly focused and trustworthy activist organization educating the public day by day on this?

The specific paragraph that had me rocking, thank you, was "The measure would allow bankruptcy judges to reduce the principal amount of mortgage loans for struggling borrowers -- a process dubbed "cramdown." Currently, mortgages on vacation properties, but not primary residences, can be reworked by bankruptcy judges."

I am not yet done with feeling gutted from each turn of this outrageous economic crisis. I'm just in disbelief!

"Guess who was one of the leaders on the Bankruptcy Bill that favored the banks but screwed the people. Clue: Obama's vice president.

And guess who voted against the bill? Clue: he's now Vice President Biden's boss."

Then, there is the fact that Obama voted against the banking industry's wishes in 2005(?) but pushed and voted as they wished in 2009 for the first version of the bailout bill. That's the one that would have given the banks $700 billion without a glimmer of oversight.

So, what happened between 2005 and 2009? Did Obama acquire a better knowledge of the economy and banking to help him make a more informed decision? Or, did he check the donations he got from the banking industry (opensecrets dot org) and decide he would return the favor? Or, was he conned into this change against his better judgment by Wall Street agents - Rubin, Summers, Geithner - ensconced in his camp? Or, both?

Dan, I've yet to hear from the alleged Oregon arm of ACORN. I'm not very impressed with an entity that plumps up its image wiht a fake web presence in all fifty/odd states. Just speaking as an old Online Viagra Wars vet... The pretend web they have for Oregon is not being watched after!

However, thanks for those links. Am moving to a new apartment, and landlord politics is high on my mind right now, as well as the out of control Portland market even as I am seeing scads of new Rent and Sale signs suddenly sprouting up all around me. Perhaps I"ll try a real ACORN office to see if they plan to activate here locally - could be just about time. Thanks for the good guidance - it's critical ppl receive meaningful information on this so they continue to care AND notice teh bad legislation such as that cussed cramdown that only protects the very wealthy and their powder homes.

There are two election cycles in the USA. There is the "quaint" one where people come and cast their votes. Then there is the "real" one where people (and corporations are people) come and cast their dollars.

Anybody who thinks that the first is more important than the second is an idiot. Perhaps an idealistic, activist, people-oriented, caring, progressive, idiot, but still an idiot.

"Bill B- So here's an irony: It's Biden who brought into the Administration probably the single most progressive of the economic advisers, Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. Go figure."

In line with similar preceding comments, this also proves that we can't judge anyone on one act - pro or con.

"The bondholders shouldn’t be surprised that the unions are getting preference over investors in an Obama administration, Egan said."

That could be a hopeful sign that Obama is paying some attention to the people and not only the corporations which suggests a prospect of a battle between the people and corporations for Obama's soul and his presidency. Unfortunately, there is also that other side of the coin: Buying Brand Obama If the link I set up doesn't work, this is it: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090503_buying_brand_obama/

<h2>Thanks, Daniel Pete. I'll explore them. Given the wya this new landlord will soon be collecting over nine hundred a month on this apt while there is a full house for just 1100 aroudn the corner from him in Mult. Village... I'm goign to be searching for a new place to rent in only a year or two.</h2>