Congress voted to roll back the various regulations that protected us from another wave of corruption and bank failures. What is most disappointing is that a group of Democrats voted with the Republicans on this bill for fat cats.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE)
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE)
Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN)
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH)
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL)
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) (to think I voted for this guy)
Sen. Angus King (I-ME)
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI)
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT)
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)
This one was a no-brainer.
Attention Dems supporting S. 2155 and looking for an off ramp to change your mind: THE CBO SCORE IS IT. CBO says it:
– increases likelihood of bank failure + taxpayer bailouts
– helps biggest banks, including $250B+, maybe Citi and JPMorgan
– adds $670 million to deficit— Chad Bolt (@chadderr) March 6, 2018
I am not looking forward to the next election, because this is what we have to look forward to: greedy, rotten bastards on the Republican side and a battery of spineless Democrats trying to look like they’re resisting, but not resisting too hard, since they want to keep that sweet, sweet cash flowing from the same sources fueling the Republicans.
We are so screwed. There will be more cash grabs and emergency bailouts of the banks in the future.
This has been going on since 1992. Where have you been?
The choice Montanans have is Tester–who is a Montana farmer and former teacher–and a pack of Republican grifters. Tester has done great service for Montana and for veterans. His vote on this perplexed me, too, but the Dems in Montana do not have anyone stronger to go against the Republicans who are dreadful. I will be voting for Jon Tester.
Based on the article’s links…. Spreadsheet time!
Wall St. contributions to those 17 in the last five years.
Total: $10,283,107 ~~ Average: $604,889
But we should probably include Schumer as well….
Total: $13,477,489 ~~ Average: $748,749
I don’t know how much Republicans received, although I’m sure it’s also a lot.
I’m going to use the money I got from the Trump tax rollbacks to buy myself a congressperson and have them come up here and serve me lemonade. Because it looks like those assholes are for sale, cheap.
This might be relevant https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/24/andrew-cuomo-hillary-clinton-cynthia-nixon-new-york-governor
Dunno. The US is not the only country with this problem. Ideally we’d start voting them out in the lower offices, and hope that the change propagates to the upper levels. In practice this is what gave us the Five Star Movement in Italy, which doesn’t make me exactly hopeful.
@ 4 Marcus
I’m going to use the money I got from the Trump tax rollbacks to buy myself a congressperson
I don’t think you could get even a cheap rep for $4.75, but I suppose it’s possible.
Are those rumours about some senators being seen on the Mall carrying signs saying, “I’ll vote for food” true?
I’m not sure I’d trust a congressman to hold my lemonade. He’d probably try to sell it to Raytheon or Novartis while my back was turned.
Contributions by the Securities & Investment industry (individuals + PACs) from 2013-2018
Michael F Bennet (D-CO): $1,915,157
Tom Carper (D-DE): $858,179
Chris Coons (D-DE): $373,599
Joe Donnelly (D-IN): $489,198
Maggie Hassan (D-NH): $441,763
Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND): $628,301
Doug Jones (D-AL): $463,061
Tim Kaine (D-VA): $1,043,878
Angus King (I-ME): $137,863
Joe Manchin (D-WV): $316,064
Claire McCaskill (D-MO): $1,860,065
Bill Nelson (D-FL): $404,462
Gary Peters (D-MI): $681,429
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH): $366,499
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI): $528,372
Jon Tester (D-MT): $825,532
Mark Warner (D-VA): $1,483,013
Source: open secrets
It would to be preceded, accompanied, and followed by boxes of cash for them to notice. In addition, the thugs prefer rubles.
@ 9 blf
In addition, the thugs prefer rubles.
Nah, yuan are the way to go these days. Confuses the cash trails beautifully.
They are all from red or purple states. All of them.
As tigerprawn (#2) noted, we should temper our expectations of politicians when most of the voters they must face are straight white Evangelicals with high-school educations and gun racks in their pickups.
joel wrote:
Are you under the impression that rural voters actually love the big banks and stock traders? I hate to break it to you, but from the voter side, this is actual a bipartisan issue. Even the damned Nazis hate the banks (although for all the wrong reasons), so even some of the worst people in the world aren’t going to complain about voting against this. No one is going to find massive numbers of voters opposed to their reelection over voting against this.
Just about the only people who want this bill are the , those joined at the hip to the banks, and congress (where there is actual bipartisan agreement for once).
ck:
I won’t speak for joel, but I think there’s more to say about various types of voters than what they love (or think they love).
Here’s a pattern: Which Democrats are elected? Rich people. Where are their contributions coming from? Rich people. Why do they need so many contributions? Well, they don’t literally need it … but, you guessed it, rich people.
I live in a pretty conservative state, although (not accidentally) in a somewhat more progressive part of it. There are rarely a bunch of decent choices for us (or even a single one), compared to states with a much bigger/stronger progressive base. It’s not like there are none. Would I say we have a plethora? No. (But do I know what a plethora is? Uhh….)
What seems to happen is that these people with huge advantages over the lower classes come in and use their very large capacity for engaging in “free speech” (AKA money), which draws attention/support/etc. away from those with more decent positions who also happen to have less. That’s not always how it goes, of course, especially at the city/county levels. I’d say it’s a more pronounced issue in state/federal offices.
If we picked a random liberal off the street and gave them these jobs, we might get what a lot of us actually love. I think the chances of it would be better, at least. But that’s not how we do things here. People are mostly ignorant of what their candidates really stand for, especially when they’re relatively isolated from lots of other progressives with whom they could share information and so forth. They can pick the not-Republican and hope that it will probably be better than nothing, but that’s not much to work with.
I mean, if you’re playing chess and the best you can come up with is merely to hope that you don’t have any huge weaknesses in your position, then you’re not in very good shape. Some 10-year-old kid out there would probably rip you apart. So, I guess what I’m saying is that I do often feel as if I’m being ripped apart by 10-year-olds….. although I wouldn’t have put it that way until just now.
“Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) (to think I voted for this guy)” I’m delighted to have had the good sense not to have voted for that guy – and F.O. (#5) gives an excellent example of the sort of thing that saved me from that embarrassment.
(Just in case there are Hillarybots lurking about with their usual gibberish – in no way did I help to bring about the results of the 2016 presidential election.)
I’d LOVE to have better Democrats in office. However, every time I suggest the idea, I’m lectured by supposedly very serious people about “realism,” “compromise,” ” bipartisanship, ” and “pragmatism” then told to sit down and shut up.
If you don’t like the type of Democrats the party is putting out, then stop driving the socialists away by backing capitalist pigs who call themselves “left-wing” because they drive a Tesla.
On the one hand Nelson has been in the game way too long (most of my life from childhood). And this revelation does him no favors in my eyes. I would say good riddance EXCEPT he will be in for an ugly bloodbath against Gov Voldemort for a Senate seat alongside Rubio. What would you have me do, albeit my vote counts for less than this post in the scheme of things? They need to hit Voldemort hard, ugly, and below the belt. Saying that, voting for Nelson again will cause me to puke a little into my mouth.
Well this article shows Nelson is a privileged blinkered asshat who has weird disparaging views about black voters:
http://sunshinestatenews.com/story/bill-nelson-says-he-doesn’t-need-motivate-black-voters
“His exact quote was this:
“I don’t think I have to get them motivated. Since so much of the prison population is African American, I think what they see is, this is a disenfranchisement of over a million people in the state of Florida, and I think that is going to be motivation not only for people who feel strongly on the issue, if you’ve been rehabbed and done your time you ought to get your rights back. I think it’s going to be a motivator in the African American community.”
While the prison system affects a disproportionate amount of African Americans, Bill Nelson thinks THIS is what is going to motivate black voters to vote for him?”
The article cites this Miami Herald article
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/edison-liberty-city/article209134949.html
…that says: “Black Democrats warn that complacency from Nelson will spell his doom in November, like it did to Hillary Clinton in 2016, when she lost the state by about 113,000 votes.” and: “Nelson said his Senate record speaks for itself, and the contrast between his record and Scott’s. Also in his favor, he says, is the presence of a question on Florida’s November ballot to allow most felons the right to vote after they’re released from prison. The question, Nelson said, will get more African American voters out to the polls in a non-presidential election.”
And there is someone who threw her hat in the ring to challenge him as Democrat:
https://ballotpedia.org/Tamika_Lyles
According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Florida,_2018
…she is: “Air Force veteran, mediator, and philanthropist”. Maybe I should send a message in the primary.
Funny, I never see you complaining about your rape-loving Brossiah Bernie Sanders and his defence of and support from the NRA.
Racist hypocrite.
What? Bernie Sanders is incredibly pro gun control and anti-gun rights. The only thing that I can think of is Bernie’s stance against letting people sue gun manufacturers pursuing a business which is legally protected by the constitution and SCOTUS case law. Hillary attacked Bernie for that, and that’s incredibly wrong-headed. Bernie totally was in the right here.
…
I’d prefer a complete change to the federal election laws to destroy the two-party system. Just do a party-list voting system like most(?) of the civilized world. I’d really prefer this.
What we really need to do is crush the culture of libertarianism, and crush the notion that rich people are rich because they work hard, and poor people are poor because they don’t work hard. In other words, we need to crush the American Dream. Insert obligatory clip to George Carlin on the American Dream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhZdGw-OM3M
In other words, we need to promote a proper Marxist revolt against the rich fuckers, and we need to convince the proletariat that they are getting fucked and we could set up a better system for them. Unfortunately, half the country considers this tantamount to Naxism and communism (even though that same half would probably like Nazism, but they partially feign disagreement with Nazism to avoid certain negative social consequences).
Yes, I am a card carrying Marxist.
How do we convince people that the world is not inherently just? We need to kill the just world fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
How do we kill the just world fallacy when it’s supported by their religion? I think this is one of the fundamental problems. There are others. Racism is probably the other biggest cultural problem that is impeding progress in this country. Disentangling racism and the just world fallacy from religion is basically impossible, and therefore I’ll throw religion in the mix of problems as well.
/rant
PZ, before the primaries were over, Kaine was on record as saying that even the amount of regulation represented by Dodd-Frank (which was much weaker than Glass-Steagall and widely criticized by economists and bankers alike) was too much, and he wanted to deregulate.
Democrats kept saying “pay attention when people tell you who they are” when they talked about Trump, but they never actually applied it to their own candidates. The right-of-center faction of the party which won the primary was always this kind of scum. Kaine’s vote against our new ex-torturer head of the CIA was actually a flip-flop — earlier he was in favor of her boss, who authorized the torture, getting the same position.
I’d love to vote out both Kaine and Warner but as popular former governor they’re pretty untouchable and they know it.
Also, the NRA doesn’t give out A ratings to people who are ” incredibly pro gun control and anti-gun rights”, though the rest of that schlock is baloney, and if you didn’t throw your voting weight behind the one candidate out of two who as not Trump, then you helped bring about his election. Not as much as someone who voted for him, but maybe, but a knife in the back is still a knife in the back.