Category: Congress

We Do Not Need This Congressional Seat This Much

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I am talking about North Carolina’s 7th district, and its current incumbent, “Democrat” Mike McIntyre:

Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) told North Carolina television station WECT that he’s unhappy the Boy Scouts of America lifted its ban on gay youth.

“I’m very disappointed,” McIntyre said. “I know my church has a long history of producing Eagle Scouts including my son and I know that many organizations that sponsor scouting are quite concerned about that and did not feel like it was an appropriate step. I know I’m concerned about it and did not think it was an appropriate step.”

No surprise that it’s also a member of the Blue Dog caucus.

We do not need Democrats who openly endorse bigotry.

Hopefully, he gets a primary challenge, but I just checked out Act Blue, and right now, he is the only candidate.

Just When You Thought that Democrats Could Not Get Any More Craven………

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David Vitter proposes a lifelong ban from food stamps for felons, and Democrats blithely included it in the Ag bill:

In today’s Senate debate on the farm bill, Senator David Vitter offered — and Senate Democrats accepted — an amendment that would increase hardship and will likely have strongly racially discriminatory effects.

The amendment would bar from SNAP (food stamps), for life, anyone who was ever convicted of one of a specified list of violent crimes at any time — even if they committed the crime decades ago in their youth and have served their sentence, paid their debt to society, and been a good citizen ever since. In addition, the amendment would mean lower SNAP benefits for their children and other family members.

So, a young man who was convicted of a single crime at age 19 who then reforms and is now elderly, poor, and raising grandchildren would be thrown off SNAP, and his grandchildren’s benefits would be cut.

Given incarceration patterns in the United States, the amendment would have a skewed racial impact. Poor elderly African Americans convicted of a single crime decades ago by segregated Southern juries would be among those hit.

Robert Greenstein, the author of this post, is an optimist. He notes the disparate racial impact, but does not draw the proper conclusion: Disparate racial impact is a goal of Vitter, not an incidental effect of the proposal.

I’m not surprised that David Vitter proposed this.  He’s just another evil Republican with a diaper fetish who procures prostitutes.

I am depressed that Democrats allowed this amendment to pass.

So, Now That We Have a Week of “Scandals”………

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The Obama administration has come out in favor of a media shield law that they had previously tried to delay and kill:

Under fire over the Justice Department’s use of a broad subpoena to obtain calling records of Associated Press reporters in connection with a leak investigation, the Obama administration sought on Wednesday to revive legislation that would provide greater protections to reporters in keeping their sources and communications confidential.

President Obama’s Senate liaison, Ed Pagano, on Wednesday morning called the office of Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and asked him to reintroduce a version of a bill that he had pushed in 2009 called the Free Flow of Information Act, a White House official said.

The bill would create a federal media shield law, akin to ones most states already have, giving journalists some protections from penalties for refusing to identify confidential sources in federal law enforcement proceedings, and generally enabling journalists to ask a federal judge to quash subpoenas for their phone records.

………

The top Democrat on the committee, Representative John Conyers of Michigan, noted that he had sponsored a version of the Free Flow of Information Act that passed the House twice when it was under Democratic control. He said he would reintroduce his version, too, and he said he hoped that Republicans — who until recently had called for more aggressive investigations of leaks — would support it.

The version the Obama administration is seeking to revive, however, is the one that was chiefly sponsored by Mr. Schumer, which was negotiated between the newspaper industry and the White House. It was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a bipartisan 15-to-4 vote in December 2009. But while it was awaiting a floor vote in 2010, a furor over leaking arose after WikiLeaks began publishing archives of secret government documents, and the bill never received a vote.

In a statement confirming that he would reintroduce the legislation, Mr. Schumer referred to the controversy over the subpoena of A.P. calling records, saying: “This kind of law would balance national security needs against the public’s right to the free flow of information. At minimum, our bill would have ensured a fairer, more deliberate process in this case.”

So, they are supporting the fake bill that they and Chuck Schumer drew up a while ago in an attempt to kill Conyer’s real reform.

Same sh%$, different day.

Oops

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Following the latest Benghazi wankfest, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has said that he is OK with the administration’s response:

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Corker (R-TN) said Wednesday that he’s “fairly satisfied” with the Obama administration’s account of events that led to the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi last year.

 “We need to know were these people culpable or not. If they were, why are they still on the payroll? Other than that, I’ve been able to read all the cables. I’ve seen the films,” Corker told MSNBC. “I feel like I know what happened in Benghazi. I’m fairly satisfied.”

Someone is not sticking to the script.

I wonder when Rush is going to take him to the Woodshed.

I’m Matthew Saroff, and I Approve of this Grandstanding

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Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bill that would set student loan rates at the same percentage as what the Federal Reserve offers to the too big to fail banks:

Students taking out government loans to help pay for college should pay the same rock-bottom interest rate that the Federal Reserve charges big banks, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed Wednesday.

With the interest rate on federal student loans set to double to 6.8% this summer, Warren said it’s unfair that big banks can borrow money at 0.75% from the central bank’s discount window.

“In other words, the federal government’s going to charge interest rates nine times higher than the rates they charge the biggest banks — the same banks that destroyed millions of jobs and nearly broke the economy,” Warren said in introducing her first stand-alone bill since taking office in January.

“That isn’t right,” she said.

………

Warren acknowledged that the Fed’s policy, which also includes a near-0% federal funds rate, is designed to help boost the economy by providing cheap credit.

But, she said, “our students are just as important to the economic recovery as our banks.”

“Let’s face it: Banks get a great deal when they borrow money from the Fed,” she said. “In effect, the American taxpayer is investing in those banks. “

“We should make the same kind of investment in our young people who are trying to get an education,” Warren said.

This is cheap pandering.

Even worse, it’s never gonna see the floor of the Senate.

That being said, someone needed to ask the question why the rest of us do not get the deal the banksters do.

Crap.

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Just heard that Mark Sanford defeated Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the special election for SC-1.

Looks to be somewhere around a 7-10% margin.

If I were living in the South Carolina’s 1st Congressional district, I would be embarrassed.

Whiny Bitches

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Senate Democrats who are upset because some incumbent are catching heat because they completely caved on gun control:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aides met recently with staffers of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to warn them: Targeting vulnerable Democrats like Arkansas’s Mark Pryor on gun control could backfire on the party, several sources told POLITICO.

It didn’t work.

Ads from the Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns are going up soon in Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota — three states with Democratic senators who broke with the White House on last month’s background checks vote.

The group is also moving as many as 60 field organizers into about a dozen states where senators — Democrats and Republicans — voted against bill, with the goal of building infrastructure and countering gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.

………

Bloomberg’s group has made its choice: Its radio spots in Arkansas will target the state’s African-American community, “without which Mark Pryor doesn’t have a prayer of getting reelected,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

………

Pryor, first elected to the Senate in 2002, claimed he’s not worried about his poor poll numbers or possible challengers, including GOP Rep. Tom Cotton, or whether MAIG or other progressive groups dump money into the race.

Shades of the contemptible Blanche Lincoln in the final graph.

When progressives decided to go after Lincoln, she already was polling lower than a case of the Clap, but somehow the primary challenge is why she lost by 20 points.

To quote Harry S Truman, “Given a choice between a fake Republican and a real one, the public will choose the real Republican every time,”and that is what happened to Lincoln, and is likely to happen to Pryor.

It’s always the same refrain in the DC incumbent protection racket, “He’s a ratf%$#, but the Republicans are scary, so we need to waste resources on a politician who wouldn’t be worth it if he were polling well.”

We know why Pryor voted the way he did, because he was running scared, and the voters of Arkansas know that too, which is why they will not be inclined to vote for him.  The pander is too blatant.

Yes, I hang up on both the DSCC and the DCCC, because I do not trust them to support candidates who support Democratic Party values, and because they spend their money stupidly.

Nearly half of all new IT jobs will go to guestworkers

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Surprise, surprise. When you look at the immigration bill proposed by the “Gang of 8”, it allocates half of all new IT jobs to guest workers:

S. 744, the comprehensive immigration bill introduced by the Senate “Gang of Eight,” dramatically increases the number of skilled guestworker visas available to employers in information technology (IT) and other sectors. The principal IT guestworker visa is the H-1B (49 percent of H-1B holders work in IT), which under current law is capped for private-sector employers at 65,000 per year plus an additional 20,000 for foreign graduates of U.S. universities. With certain exceptions, S. 744 will raise the cap initially to 115,000 and if strong demand continues, to 180,000 per year, with an additional 25,000 reserved for foreign graduates. Thus, under the likely high-demand scenario, we would have 120,000 more H-1Bs annually than we do now, and 58,800 of them would be in IT.

 We can reasonably predict, therefore, that guestworkers will fill nearly half of all IT job openings for which a college degree is required each year. In a new report, Guestworkers in the High-Skill U.S. Labor Market, Hal Salzman, Daniel Kuehn, and B. Lindsay Lowell calculate that in 2011 there were approximately 483,000 IT job openings for college grads filled in the last year (including those with advanced degrees), a third of which were filled by newly arriving guestworkers in three different guestworker programs. As the figure shows, if S.744 is enacted and the maximum number of H-1B workers were allowed to enter and work in the United States, nearly 220,000 new job openings in IT would be filled by guestworkers—almost half the annual total as of 2011.

I guess that skilled IT positions are yet another “Job that Americans won’t do”.

Seriously, if we want things like H1B and  guest workers not to completely f%$# everyone outside of the 1%, we need to make sure that they are limited to truly essential and unique skill set.

The easiest way that you do this by making it more expensive than hiring an American.  You can jack up the application fees, possibly by using an auction system and a limited supply.

H/t PP at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Contemptible Ratf%$# Decides Not to Run for Reelection

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Senator, and Glenn Quagmire impersonator, Max Baucus

I am referring, of course, to  short timer Senator Max Baucus, who has announced that he will not be running for reelection:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), one of the most influential congressional figures of his era, announced his intention Tuesday to retire, a move that could produce sweeping changes in the political and legislative landscape over the next two years.

 The announcement could mark the beginning of one of the most consequential periods in Baucus’s long public career, because he pledged to devote the rest of his time in Washington to pursuing a comprehensive rewrite of the federal tax code, an effort that many see as key to breaking the fiscal gridlock that has paralyzed Washington in recent years.

BTW, if thie following paragraph does not fill you with dread, you have no soul:

That paralysis of taxes and spending has been a central feature of Obama’s presidency, and Baucus said that when the president called him Tuesday about his retirement, the talk quickly turned to tax reform. “They’re going to get tired of me,” Baucus said in an interview, adding that White House officials do not “know themselves where they are” on a strategy for ending the stalemate.

Because Baucus has been a cancer on the Senate in general, and Democratic Party in particular, and unencumbered by the potential for reelection, I think that he will try to f%$# the Democratic Party, and the country in any way he can.

After all, he has to be angling to get a cushy, and highly remunerative, gif from corporate America after he retires

As TPM reporter Brian Beutler pithily observes, it’s not just that he comes from a conservative state, and so has to hew right.   It is that he hews right except when the politics make it absolutely impossible for him to do so:

Some pols are more or less faithful party-men who stray on occasion during challenging electoral cycles. Baucus, by contrast, has amassed a remarkably consistent record of working at cross-purposes with the rest of his party whether politics in Montana have demanded it or not.

 He voted for the Bush Tax Cuts in 2001; then after securing re-election, and against the will of Democratic leadership, supported a Medicare prescription drug benefit that routed tax payer money through private insurers. He spent months and months behind closed doors with GOP lawmakers in 2009 in a futile search for bipartisan support for what became the Affordable Care Act. That quixotic effort dragged on well past the point at which party leaders believed it might pay off, and it delayed legislative action for so long that the bill nearly died when Democrats lost Ted Kennedy’s seat to Scott Brown in early 2010.

 ………

 A key exception to this track record is his long history of bucking GOP attempts to slash and privatize popular social insurance programs like Medicare and Social Security. But viewed through the prism of his broader approach to politics, this seems more an idiosyncratic instance of liberal priorities lining up with Baucus’ venal decision making, than an expression of genuine commitment to the legacy of the New Deal and Great Society.

 By contrast, his recent votes against gun legislation and the Democratic budget are vintage Baucus. One can argue that this sort of “independent streak” might protect Montana Democratic candidates in the abstract. But polling on the specifics doesn’t really back up the view that Baucus needed to buck his party on these measures to remain viable. Which helps explain why Baucus’ fellow Montanan Jon Tester (whom, I should note as a caveat won’t be in cycle again until 2018) voted ‘yes’ on both occasions.

(Read the whole thing)

I would also note that he, and his staff leave a trail of slime all the way to K Street:

Restaurant chains like McDonald’s want to keep their lucrative tax credit for hiring veterans. Altria, the tobacco giant, wants to cut the corporate tax rate. And Sapphire Energy, a small alternative energy company, is determined to protect a tax incentive it believes could turn algae into a popular motor fuel.

 To make their case as Congress prepares to debate a rewrite of the nation’s tax code, this diverse set of businesses has at least one strategy in common: they have retained firms that employ lobbyists who are former aides to Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which will have a crucial role in shaping any legislation.

 No other lawmaker on Capitol Hill has such a sizable constellation of former aides working as tax lobbyists, representing blue-chip clients that include telecommunications businesses, oil companies, retailers and financial firms, according to an analysis by LegiStorm, an online database that tracks Congressional staff members and lobbying. At least 28 aides who have worked for Mr. Baucus, Democrat of Montana, since he became the committee chairman in 2001 have lobbied on tax issues during the Obama administration — more than any other current member of Congress, according to the analysis of lobbying filings performed for The New York Times.

 “K Street is literally littered with former Baucus staffers,” said Jade West, an executive at a wholesalers’ trade association that relies on a former finance panel aide, Mary Burke Baker. “It opens doors that allow you to make the case.”

(emphasis mine)

Hopefully, former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is popular and rather liberal by the standards of Montana politics.

I’m Not Sure Who’s the Rat, and Who is the Sinking Ship………

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But following the discovery of a complaint filed by his ex-wife for trespassing at her home, the national GOP is pulling out all resources from his campaign:

National Republicans are pulling the plug on Mark Sanford’s suddenly besieged congressional campaign, POLITICO has learned — a potentially fatal blow to the former South Carolina governor’s dramatic comeback bid.

Blindsided by news that Sanford’s ex-wife has accused him of trespassing and concluding he has no plausible path to victory, the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

“Mark Sanford has proven he knows what it takes to win elections. At this time, the NRCC will not be engaged in this special election,” said Andrea Bozek, an NRCC spokeswoman.

Sanford is facing Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Clemson University administrator and sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, in a race that has grabbed the national spotlight.

The NRCC’s move comes hours after Tuesday night’s report by the Associated Press that Sanford’s ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, filed a court complaint accusing him of trespassing at her home in early February – which would be a violation of the terms of their divorce agreement.

Republicans said they were caught off guard by news of Jenny Sanford’s complaint. They worry other damaging revelations about Mark Sanford’s personal life that they aren’t aware of could come out in the coming weeks.

The calculus here is simple: The district is pretty red, and any money that they spent on Sanford now they would also have to spend in 2014 if he won, so it is better to let Colbert-Busch to have a few months in Congress, where her vote won’t count.

That way you do not have Mark Sanford around your neck like a corpulent albatross.

I Do Not Care That Their Votes did Not Matter, Primary Them

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The 4 Democrats who voted for the filibuster on the (already largely ineffectual) background checks on guns need to have their political careers ended:

As the Senate began voting Wednesday on nine proposed changes to a gun control bill, the centerpiece proposal on background checks quickly failed to win enough support, despite broad public backing.

The vote on the so-called Manchin-Toomey amendment was 54 in favor, 46 against — failing to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to move ahead. Four Republicans supported it, and four Democrats voted no.

………

In addition to McCain and Toomey, the amendment was supported by Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) The Democrats who opposed the measure were Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.) The four Democrats face difficult reelections in rural states with strong gun cultures.

And their votes will not make a difference.

The NRA will still run ads against them, and the 10% of the electorate who oppose a sane background check policy would never vote for them.

It is more important to enforce meaningful party loyalty than it is to allow these ratf%$#s to hold their seats.

What is Wrong With Democratic Political Class in One Phrase

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It appears that they think that the biggest strength that a candidate can have is he or she, “doesn’t have particularly strong views.”

Because, I guess, nothing always beats something:

Democratic Party officials believe that Kevin Strouse is exactly the kind of candidate who can help them retake the House next year.

 He’s a smart, young former Army Ranger — good qualities for any aspiring politician. But what party leaders really like is that Strouse doesn’t have particularly strong views on the country’s hottest issues.

 Immigration? Tax policy? “Certainly I have a lot of research to do,” Strouse acknowledged in an interview Thursday as he announced his candidacy in a suburban Philadelphia House district.

 Strouse’s candidacy reflects an emerging Democratic strategy for taking back the House from Republicans after the tea party takeover of 2010.

 The best way to defeat the conservative, ideologically driven GOP, Democrats say, is to field non-ideological “problem solvers” who can profit from the fed-up-with-partisanship mood of some suburban areas. These districts will offer some of the few competitive House campaigns in the country.

 “You pick your strategic high ground and force them to fight on it,” said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has begun a particularly early effort at traveling the country and working the phones to lure Strouse and others like him into races.

(emphasis mine)

Steve Israel was, until he wanted a leadership position, he was a one of the Quisling Blue Dog Caucus, and his goal is to restore the decimated Benedict Arnold Blue Dog Caucus, because the f%$#ing Blue Dogs were so good for the party in the past.

In any case, be aware that this sort of mind bogglingly stupidity is from the person trying to pick and choose Democratic Party nominees for the US House of Representatives, and he is bragging about this bit of lunacy.

Choose your own candidates.  Don’t give to the DCCC, because they will waste your money on bullsh%$ like this.

IOKIYAR*

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It’s on!

Mark “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” Sanford won the Republican nomination for the special election in 1st Congressional district in South Carolina:

Mark Sanford’s fiancée, the Argentine for whom he risked a political career, stood next to him Tuesday as he accepted the Republican nomination for a South Carolina Congressional seat.

María Belén Chapur’s appearance was a surprise, especially to leaders in the national Republican Party. It might not have been the most strategic move in Mr. Sanford’s attempt at a political comeback. Still, it was how Mr. Sanford wanted it.

Whether national Republican leaders will decide that the former governor is putting the seat in jeopardy and decide to lend more support is only one question in a race that has already been filled with political and personal drama. After defeating 15 other candidates in a primary race and winning a runoff on Tuesday, Mr. Sanford faces Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Democrat with enough celebrity appeal and financial backing to change what could have been an easy victory in the special election on May 7 into a real battle.

There is yet another example of just how classless Republicans are in the article:

“Everybody is really concerned because she’s not a bad-looking lady, she is a good speaker and she’s got some money,” said Jerry Hallman, chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party. “In politics, those things are important.”

Elizabeth Colbert Busch is Stephen Colbert’s older sister, so when the classless Mr. Hallman talked about her celebrity, he was not kidding. (See the vid for more)

Still, it is remarkable how complete a Republican self-immolation can be, and yet they are still allowed to return to positions of public trust.

This is a guy who runs on family values, and he gets caught f%$#ing around on his former wife with the woman who is now his current wife, and it’s, “Hey, no harm, no foul.”

The Republican culture of impunity is a marvel to behold.

*It’s OK If You Are a Republican.

Wimp Out

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Obama has withdrawn Caitlin Halligan’s nomination To D.C. Circuit Court:

President Obama has withdrawn the nomination of Caitlin J. Halligan, a prominent New York lawyer, to serve on an important federal appeals court in Washington, blaming Republicans for blocking her confirmation twice.

The president formally notified the Senate of his decision on Friday, after Ms. Halligan requested that her name be withdrawn from consideration. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is widely viewed as the most important federal appellate court because it reviews many cases on the government’s authority.

“I am deeply disappointed that even after nearly two and a half years, a minority of senators continued to block a simple up-or-down vote on her nomination,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “This unjustified filibuster obstructed the majority of senators from expressing their support. I am confident that with Caitlin’s impressive qualifications and reputation, she would have served with distinction.”

First, to Harry Reid: It was such a good idea to soft pedal filibuster reform.  Here’s hoping that the Senate Democrats will choose a new leader in 2014.

Obama needs to show some guts.

The DC Court of Appeals is effectively the 2nd highest court in the land, and it is the one that is shortest staffed, because the ‘Phants are filibustering any appointment to the court.

Rolling over and playing dead is not a winning proposition.

Dick Durbin Wants to F%$3 Us Like a Steubinville Football Player Would

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He is proposing a Social Security to “fix” the program:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin announced Wednesday morning that he will introduce a bipartisan bill to create a Social Security commission tasked with making the program solvent for the next 75 years.

………

Durbin says the bill would require votes in the House and Senate on whatever the commission proposes.

With no possibility of filibuster, or amendment.

It’s another way to accommodate Obama’s, and the other Washington, DC “very serious people’s”, burning need to gut security.

The solution is straightforward. If you lift the cap. It’s solvent for at least 75 years.

If you extend the tax to things like capital gains, or at least carried interest, it’s solvent basically forever.

I am sick to death of people trying to create yet another cat food commission.*

*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.

Tentacles of the Vampire Squid

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It was nice when the last remaining New England Republican, Christopher Shays, was defeated.

Unfortunately, he was by former Goldman Sachs executive Jim Himes, who is doing his level best to gut the most effective provisions of Dodd Frank: (See also here)

Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes said a provision in the Wall Street reform legislation aimed at limiting taxpayer exposure to risky elements of financial products sold by banks goes too far and must be changed.

 Himes, a Greenwich resident and member of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, joined with Republicans from North Carolina and Illinois and a fellow Democrat from New York to introduce the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act this week that would amend the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. A similar bill has been brought forward in the Senate. An attempt to amend the provision last year failed.

 ………

 As part of the Dodd-Frank Act, banks with access to the Federal Reserve’s overnight lending program and insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would be required to set up independent subsidiaries in order to continue selling the financial instruments, called swaps.

 Underfunded swap positions among big banks and other financial institutions were a major reason for the 2008 financial disaster. Swap trades were not made on any exchanges and many of them were based on mortgages. Fearing bank failures of staggering proportions, Congress bailed out the largest institutions.

So, he’s trying to put tax payers on the hook for the gambles at the big casino yet again.

So, what does this mean? It means that the Democratic leadership will make him head of the DCCC finance committee for the 2014 elections:

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut will be the new national finance chairman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2014 cycle, according to two well-placed Democratic sources on Capitol Hill.

 Officials announced the new position for Himes, a three-term Democrat from Connecticut, at a morning meeting for members.

Jeebus.  The Vampire Squid owns us all.

Simon Johnson was right when he said that the first step in recovery from the implosion of your finance system is to break grip on power of the elites who  f%$#ed us like a drunk sorority pledge.  (I’m paraphrasing)

Pernicious Contemptible Ratf%$#s

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Republican Senators, who just included the NRA’s wet dreams in the continuing resolution to keep the government running:

With gun safety measures headed to the Senate floor, members of the House and Senate appropriations committees have quietly made permanent four formerly temporary gun-rights provisions largely favored by Republicans. Those provisions are part of a spending bill that would keep the government running through Sept. 30.

The provisions, which have been renewed separately at various points, would prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from requiring gun dealers to conduct annual inventories to ensure that they have not lost guns or had them stolen, and would retain a broad definition of “antique” guns that can be imported into the United States outside of normal regulations.

Another amendment would prevent the A.T.F. from refusing to renew a dealer’s license for lack of business; many licensed dealers who are not actively engaged in selling firearms can now obtain a license to sell guns and often fly under the radar of the agency and other law enforcement officials, which gun control advocates argue leads to a freer flow of illegal guns.

A final measure would require the bureau to attach a disclaimer to data about guns to indicate that it “cannot be used to draw broad conclusions about firearms-related crimes.”

Officials from the A.T.F. have long complained that quirky laws passed by Congress hamstring their ability to curb gun crimes. For example, under federal laws the bureau is prohibited from creating a federal registry of gun transactions, making it hard to track illegal guns.

Many of the provisions have been regularly added to appropriations bills since 2004. But Senate Democrats on the committee — pushed by Republicans and some Democrats who have made gun rights a signature issue — reluctantly agreed to make them permanent to stave off what they saw as an even more far-reaching House version of the bill.

The House offering contained a new rider that would prevent the A.T.F. from requiring gun dealers on the Southwest border to notify the agency when selling two or more long guns — semiautomatic rifles, higher than .22 caliber with detachable magazines — to the same buyer within five days. These firearms are the preferred weapons of Mexican drug cartels, Senate aides said.

The NRA is a toxic institution. It poisons our society.

We need to make it as toxic in politics as it is in society.

Oh No He Didn’t!

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Bob Ney, former Congressman, and felon, wrote a book, and in it he claims that John Boehner promised him a well paying job if he were to end his reelection campaign in his new memoire:

The most inflammatory accusation against Boehner in the book is Ney’s contention that he ended his reelection campaign after winning the primary in 2006 only after Boehner, then the majority leader, summoned the cash-strapped and embattled congressman to his office and told him if he quit the race, Boehner would take care of him. “If you resign the next day, I will personally guarantee you a job comparable to what you are making, and raise legal defense money for you that should bury all this Justice Department problem for you,” Boehner said, according to Ney. He said he pressed Boehner, repeating the terms and getting assurance that the offer was “ironclad.” When Ney called back the next day to accept the deal, he wrote that he again repeated the terms to Boehner, who agreed. “Because of Boehner’s promise, I stepped aside,” he wrote. But Ney said Boehner did not keep his word. “I had been lied to and ditched,” Ney said.

I’m not sure that I can believe that. That would be like claiming that John Boehner was on the floor of the house handing out campaign cash from cigarette manufacturers as they voted on subsidies for tobacco. ……… Wait! ……… What? ……… He did do that?!?! ……… Never mind.

A note about the article: I’m not sure if it is the author, George Condon, or his editor, but what is arguably the most explosive allegation is 7 paragraphs down, under the title, “Disgraced Ex-Congressman Attacks John Boehner in New Book,” and a subhead of, “Bob Ney, who was imprisoned for his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal, has some scores to settle.”

I do understand why someone would hate Bob “Freedom Fries” Ney, (I do) he is/was a nasty piece of work, but burying the lede is not an appropriate response.

Yes, This is to be Expected from a Story “Broken” by the Daily Caller

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It turns out that the escort who claimed that Senator Bob Menendez paid her for sex now says that she was paid to lie:

An escort who appeared on a video claiming that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) paid her for sex has told Dominican authorities that she was instead paid to make up the claims and has never met or seen the senator, according to court documents and two people briefed on her claim.

The woman said a local lawyer had approached her and a fellow escort and asked them to help frame Menendez and a top donor, Salomon Melgen, according to affidavits obtained by The Washington Post.

That lawyer has in turn identified a second Dominican lawyer who he said gave the woman a script and paid her to read the claims aloud. The first lawyer said he found out only later that the remarks would be videotaped and used against Menendez, the affidavits say.

The claims of two women that they had had sex with Menendez seemed to confirm a tipster’s allegations that Menendez had patronized prostitutes while vacationing in the Dominican Republic. The tipster, who last spring began e-mailing allegations to a government watchdog group and the FBI, said he had evidence that Menendez had relations with underage prostitutes and participated in sex parties arranged by Melgen, his friend and political backer.

FBI agents conducting interviews in the Dominican Republic have found no evidence to back up the tipster’s allegations, according to two people briefed on their work.

Here’s the kicker:

The videotaped claims of two women, made with their faces obscured, were posted on the conservative Web site the Daily Caller. The site reported that “the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000-acre resort in the Dominican Republic. . . . They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.”

Daily Caller Editor Tucker Carlson did not reply to phone calls and e-mails requesting comment.

What a surprise.

He did not call back.

Kind of like when John Fund hid in the bathroom when police came in to talk to him a domestic violence beef.

Carlson is yet another product of the Republican nepotism machine, like Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney, and the results ain’t pretty.

In Your Face, Wayne LaPierre

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There was a primary to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in the Illinois 2nd Congressional district, and it ended up a referendum on gun laws, and the pro-gun control candidate won it in a walk:

Riding a wave of “super PAC” spending that helped catapult her to the front of a crowded Democratic field, Robin Kelly, whose campaign called for tougher national gun laws, clinched her party’s nomination Tuesday in a special primary election for the House seat vacated by Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr.

The outcome of the contest, which had been unexpectedly cast into the center of the national gun debate, was welcome news for Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York and a staunch gun-control advocate. He poured more than $2.2 million into attacking Ms. Kelly’s chief opponent, Debbie Halvorson, this month.

Flooding Chicago airwaves, Mr. Bloomberg’s super PAC, Independence USA, ran a series of advertisements criticizing Ms. Halvorson for opposing certain gun control measures and endorsing Ms. Kelly as the alternative candidate.

………

In Illinois’s Second Congressional District, which includes parts of the South Side of Chicago and southern suburban counties, Mr. Bloomberg’s super PAC financed a wave of mailers and television advertisements that criticized Ms. Halvorson, a former House member, for having gotten an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association in earlier elections and for opposing bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips.

………

Last week, the Illinois State Rifle Association responded to Mr. Bloomberg’s effort by sending out mailers asking its members in the district to vote for Ms. Halvorson on Tuesday. Ms. Halvorson said she had not asked for the endorsement.

She was considered a front-runner after Mr. Jackson resigned in November, just weeks after his re-election. He pleaded guilty last week to one count of fraud for spending campaign money on personal expenses and celebrity memorabilia.

………

In he victory speech, Ms. Kelly, a former state representative who has worked as a chief of staff for the Illinois state treasurer, told supporters they had sent “a message that tells the N.R.A. that their days of holding our country hostage are coming to an end.”

Your mouth to God’s ear, Ms. Kelly.