Archive for category Campaign Finance Reform
Republicans Suddenly “Get Religion” On Financial Reform?
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Republicans, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, White House, financial industry on April 26th, 2010
Several weeks ago Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell and Senator John Cornyn, leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee – a principle Republican campaign fund-raising organization – flew to New York City to meet with Wall Street. Looming on the “dark horizon” was another long and bitter battle with President Obama and the Democrats over the proposed financial reform bill. It was safe to assume that Republicans would drag this one out like they did health care reform so as to impact the coming Fall mid-term elections.
True to form, McConnell and Cornyn made their pitch to the money-changers sitting in the temple – which was 25 Wall Street executives and hedge fund managers. The two powerful Senators made it very clear that in order for the Republicans to have any chance to take back control of the Senate and the House, they would need Wall Street’s assistance. As one anonymous Wall Street executive in attendance so eloquently put it, “There was no arm twisting, but they did say that we should feel uncomfortable living in any country where one party has unfettered ability to pass anything [legislation] . . . President Obama dreams up.”
I hope I don’t have to spell out what the Republicans quid pro quo was? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ . . . and lots of it.
So upon the Senator’s return to Washington, McConnell immediately announces that the Republicans are united in their oppostion to the Democrats’ financial reform bill, and they will utilize every procedural move to block the proposed regulatory-laden legislation because it will risk future tax-payer bailouts. That was just two weeks ago.
Fast forward one week, with one big freakin’ revelation about Goldman Sachs’ “gaming the system” to the $1 Billion detriment of several of their institutional clients, as well as proposals for much stronger derivatives regulation coming out of another Senate committee – and the Republicans are caught in a trap that they set for themselves.
Yet, in spite of the fact that the Republicans suddenly reversed course and were quickly backing away from supporting their Wall Street financiers, appearing more conciliatory towards President Obama and the Democrats than they have in more than 14 months, Mitch McConnell would have you believe that he has the Democrats on the ropes.
McConnell seems to think he should get credit for forcing the Democrats to negotiate. Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and author of the pending legislation, responded to McConnell’s baseless bragging, saying this:
“That is like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise.”
YEP!
UPDATE: Now after two days of filbustering and holding up floor debate on financial reform, McConnell got those Democrats to negotiate again – or was it get the voters to forget about the GOP’s siding with Wall Street by November?
Thunderous Applause by Utah Republicans for House Majority Leader’s “Honesty”?
Posted by Lance Haley in Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Cultural Issues, Ethics, Government, Morality, Politics, Sex & Sexuality on March 12th, 2010
Let me get this straight?
Kevin Garn, Utah’s 55 year old Republican Majority House Leader, sat naked in a hot tub when he was 28 years old, with a 15 year old female employee. It was all just a “spur of the moment” skinny dip, and nothing sexual happened, according to Garn. Garn then paid the woman $150,000 eight years ago, during his 2002 U.S. Congressional campaign, to keep quiet about the incident (yes, she extorted money from him).
This week it all become very public when the woman went public with the story anyway. And only now is Garn apologizing. For the both the prior unlawful adult-child “indiscretion”, as well as for the subsequent payment of “hush money” in 2002. So how do fellow Republicans respond to his involuntary act of contrition in the Legislative chambers of the Utah House of Representatives?
With “thunderous applause for his honesty and embraced him.” Even Utah’s Speaker of the House, Dave Clark, was moved to tears. And the Utah Governor’s spokesperson said they would not be asking for his resignation.
Wait! It gets even better. Garn said “now that this issue is coming up again, it is apparent to me that this payment was also a mistake.” Because it was wrong? Or because it did not work? Irony of ironies . . . Garn was the House’s designated leader this year for several ethics proposals designed to restore their constiuent’s faith in Utah’s Legislature after a recent spate of alleged claims of political bribery. Garn is still hopeful he can get re-elected. And obviously, so are his political peers.
They just do not get it, people . . .
and apparently neither do we, the electorate.
SHAME ON US!
Corporate American is a Non-sensical Legal Fantasy
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Financial Terrorists, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on February 15th, 2010
![Corporate American [Tom Tomorrow]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Corporate-American-Tom-Tomorrow.bmp "Corporate American [Tom Tomorrow]")
THE RISE OF THE CORPORATE-AMERICAN [from TOM TOMORROW'S "MODERN WORLD" - published at Salon.com]
Here are the clones your U.S. Supreme Court truly elevated to the status of human beings in order to finally ensure that justice prevails – in other words, that Freedom of Speech and the political system can be bought and owned by the highest bidders.
Now how soon do the other four seats on the court go up for sale? Our corporations deserve to speak with one voice, and they now have the right ($$$) to make sure it’s the only voice heard!
Enjoy your democracy while it lasts, America.
Credit Card Issuers Game Now Patently Transparent
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wall Street on December 11th, 2009
The brazenness of the largest American bankers is now so patently transparent that it is arguably criminal. Yet, when you own the local sheriff and prosecutor, it’s a sure bet there will never be any charges filed.
In a previous post I called out J.P. Morgan Chase’s commercial banking subsidiary for raising interest rates on their credit card holders in an effort to squeeze extraordinary profits out of their customers ahead of the reform coming out of Congress.
Now other banks are following suit and working at a frenzied pace in order to raise rates and fees to unheard of levels before the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act becomes law. These are the very banks that we bailed out – and now they have the audacity to screw us. Compounding the problem was the U.S. Senate’s refusal to accelerate the effective date of the reform measures from February 22, 2010 to December 1, 2009, defying the U.S. House of Representatives’ attempt to stop these financial terrorists from exploiting us.
Ever wonder what is in it for the Senators? If you watched PBS ’s Frontline on November 23, 2009, called The Card Game, the banking consultants, lobbyists, and their shameless political minions are interviewed for this remarkable story and it’s exploration of the banking industry’s credit card business. There are numerous instances of individuals defending their practices of charging outrageous rates of interest on a “loan” – I mean the kind of rates that would make a loan shark shudder.
What is most surprising is how craftily the politicians dance around the notion that giving these financial terrorists another couple of months to screw as many credit card holders as possible in order to maximize their profits for years to come will be long forgotten in the next election cycle. Let’s face some simple facts. The enormous amount of money these politicians receive from the financial industry in the form of campaign contributions - both Democrats and Republicans collectively took in almost $500 Million from the financial industry in the 2008 election cycle – goes virtually unnoticed by the general public.
Moreover, their political consultants know that in spite of their transparent complicity in allowing the credit card industry more time to run up interests rates prior to the new law going into effect, most of the politicians’ constituents will not even likely know about this transgression of monumental proportions. Furthermore, even if a very small minority of us do know – as is evidenced by this post – they are confident that this fact will be long forgotten in the endless cycle of the “politics of distraction” fomented by the partisan rancor that occurs every day and is then reported in the media.
They right . . . and we will re-elect the incumbant based on our fear of the other party’s candidate getting elected – whether it be Democrat or Republican. They rely on that fact – to our detriment. Both parties in the U.S. Senate.
And that’s how we continue to screw ourselves.
P.S. to the Banking Industry: I WILL NOT FORGET!!!
Do Wall Street Vampires Really Need H1N1 Vaccinations?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Health & Diet, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Tea Party, Uncategorized, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on November 9th, 2009
It is a fair assumption that people without hearts and souls are immortal, and not subject to the vicissitudes of Mother Nature’s nasty flu viruses that she visits on us annually. So why does Wall Street get first crack at these vaccinations?
I guess women, children, and the elderly are dispensable in comparison. Now that is real evidence of rationing health care and Death Panels - - just not quite in the form that the Tea Baggers envisioned. And it only cost Wall Street $5 Billion in campaign contributions over the past decade to the Washington politicians in order to buy protection from their own malfeasance, and the random cruelty of Mother Nature.
As well as unjustifiably obscene bonuses, to wit.
What a bargain.
FDA approval of Knee Device Reveals Problems with Political Pressure from Health Care Industry
Posted by Lance Haley in Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized on October 13th, 2009
Want to see just one egregious example of the incestuous relationship between health care and Washington? Read this story about how scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were placed under enormous pressure from their own agency after twice rejecting approval of ReGen Biologics’ Menaflex device.
Moreover, these lawmakers were not your run-of-the-mill Republican politicians that are normally associated with being “owned” by Big Business. Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) are two very powerful Liberal Democrats doing the bidding for a company in New Jersey that is part of the medical devices and equipment industry.
Ironically, after unprecedented pressure was brought to bear on the FDA in order to force it to reconsider the original denial of approval of the device, agency employees were told to “follow the science” in making their final determination – which can only leave one to conclude that this was code for “follow the political campaign money”, $26,000 worth of it to be exact.
Let’s face it. The FDA, the regulatory agency that was created in order to protect the health and welfare of the citizens of this nation from products and companies that would place them in danger, obviously serves at the will of the health care and pharmaceutical industries (there are numerous instances of this type of behavior at the FDA over the past 10 years or so). This proves the degree to which government is working against us, all in the name of money and profit. When this type of unwarranted and unlawful coercion exists at the highest level of government, the notion of deregulation is non-sensical.
While scores of people in this country scream about government takeovers and “Socialism”, corrupt business interests align themselves with politicians (by lining their pockets with money) in order to quietly convert this country into a nation devoted to Corporate Communism.
One year after the Wall Street Bailout . . . nothing has changed
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Campaign Finance Reform, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on September 15th, 2009
![The Bosses of the Senate [original]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/The-Bosses-of-the-Senate-original1.jpg "The Bosses of the Senate [original]")
THE BOSSES OF THE SENATE [Keppler, political cartoon, circa 1889]
On the one year anniversary of the global economic collapse, there are thousands of news articles and blogs being written about the Wall Street bailout. Personally, I have read over one hundred articles written by financial analysts, economists, business people and academics just in the past two months. What many of them have to say about this economic crisis is mind-boggling – - the information is beyond the understanding of many Americans (and for most of the others, they simply do not want to take the time to really learn the complex intricacies of modern business and economics). I do not say that with any degree of arrogance or contempt. The fact of the matter is that in this era of cable news programming, radio talk show hosts, blogs, and other “resources”, Americans have resigned themselves to simplistic answers for very complex problems. And most of those conclusions are drawn down partisan lines.
However, just this morning I read one of the most direct indictments of the bailout and it’s consequences from someone with obviously no partisan score to settle, and no vested economic agenda. Dylan Ratigan, a financial writer, reporter, and now the host of MSNBC’s “Morning Meeting”, wrote an Op-Ed piece titled ”A year after bailout, Congress hostage to banks“, and the byline, “Corporate greed has taught our government nothing.
In it, he writes that the economic system “all of us, left, right and center, need to demand that our politicians stop serving” business interests that steal from us, and produce nothing of any value for our economy.
In the wake of all that has occurred, I have been researching and preparing a series of essays on the problem with the American political system and the direct correlation with money. To put it bluntly, there is a river of money running through Washington, D.C., and the source is primarily a very powerful Corporate America. If you want to see the most direct evidence of this problem, look at the campaign contributions by major banking and financial services firms to BOTH the Democrat and Republican members of the of the Senate Banking Committee (unfortunately I cannot find a link to the information at the moment, but will update this post later).
Many people reading this will say, “Yea, we all know what you are talking about, so what’s your point.” The point of this website, ScrewedUS, is to identify those blind spots that we all have, both Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives, which keep us polarized, as well as oblivious to most central issue that faces this country today – - the United States of America DOES NOT belong to its citizens anymore. It has been bought by some very powerful interests in this country (and around the world) in order to do it’s bidding.
Open both your mind and your eyes. If we continute to engage in rank political bickering while the politicians fiddle, their powerful business interests loot the national treasury, and “Rome burns”, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. Calling each other names, or personally attacking one another by saying “You lie”, will not change one thing.
Wresting control of this country back from the powerful monied-interests who have hijacked it for their own devices is the only way to save it from a long, painful decline into poverty and irrelevance.
NOTE: The cartoon at the top of the post, The Bosses of the Senate, can be found at the U.S. Senate website. Here is the language from the website describing the drawing and what it portrays:
“This frequently reproduced cartoon, long a staple of textbooks and studies of Congress, depicts corporate interests–from steel, copper, oil, iron, sugar, tin, and coal to paper bags, envelopes, and salt–as giant money bags looming over the tiny senators at their desks in the Chamber. Joseph Keppler drew the cartoon, which appeared in Puck on January 23, 1889, showing a door to the gallery, the “people’s entrance,” bolted and barred. The galleries stand empty while the special interests have floor privileges, operating below the motto: “This is the Senate of the Monopolists by the Monopolists and for the Monopolists!”
Keppler’s cartoon reflected the phenomenal growth of American industry in the 1880s, but also the disturbing trend toward concentration of industry to the point of monopoly, and its undue influence on politics. This popular perception contributed to Congress’s passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890.”