Well, no surprise, the Senate just got in line and confirmed Ben Bernanke as Fed Chair, despite the fact we cannot find out who received $2 trillion dollars in loans, the complete miss of the housing bubble, the ignoring of derivatives as systemic risk and the general stonewalling on getting some real reforms and answers on the Financial meltdown.
With that, the game being played is Senators want to claim they voted against Bernanke....but not really. So, below are the vote tallies. If a Senator voted for cloture yet against the actual confirmation, that move is pure politics. In truth they completely endorsed Ben and his subversion of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and lack of transparency.
23 Senators voted against the Cloture Vote.
On the confirmation vote, 70 Senators voted to confirm Bernanke.
Of those yes votes on the cloture vote yet voted no to confirm we have 7 Senators. These cats are weasels because by voting yes on cloture, they in essence voted to confirm Bernanke, so by switching their vote to no, they are trying to score political points by claiming they voted against Bernanke, when in fact they voted yes.
The weasels are:
- Boxer (D-CA)
- Dorgan (D-ND)
- Franken (D-MN)
- Harkin (D-IA)
- Kaufman (D-DE)
- LeMieux (R-FL)
- Whitehouse (D-RI)
This is in fact, God awful because some on this list are strong Populist representatives, so I sure hope they got something from Wall Street or the White House to justify this weasel behavior. Senator Dorgan, are you kidding me?
Shelby For President
This guy 'got it' during the TARP talks and he sees through Bernanke.
So many republicans would benefit from a third party to run under.
I was thinking of the next election
Firstly I hear kos introduced on MSNBC as a "Progressive", uh, not in my book is he a progressive so there's another one where the misuse of the term goes on...
That's why I hate the term. "Progressive" is not supposed to imply someone who is focused on a host of social agendas, war and for more bad trade deals and so on. A Progressive officially wants some serious economic reforms...but the term is completely muddled at this point.
But for the next election, I was thinking national campaign to vote 3rd party and try to get as much Congress/Senators from 3 party on the ticket (which is a true nightmare)...
Just anything to screw up the works. Shelby sounded awesome on the original bail outs I even put up a bunch of stuff from him but make no mistake, he is no friend to the U.S. worker, middle class and even overall the economy.
I think though you did have a few not bought and paid fors who just intuitively knew that had to be crap.
Robert Reich is suggesting the U.S. form the "I'm mad as hell party and I'm not gonna take it anymore".
Honestly I don't have any answers, even some of the most progressives-populist candidates have turned out to be duds in a lot of ways.
A Mutant Party is Needed
One that can take the social policies of the left and bond them with some of the common sense arguments (not the delay people) of the right.
If the 'Tea Party' or some other variant came out in favor of abortion and some other liberal ideas mixed with some conservative ideas but stayed fiscally conservative they might find a middle ground.
I know what you mean about Shelby I really could never vote for him but as you said on the bail outs and here on Bernanke he is spot on.
Obama is back in placate the repubs mode again. So bottom line we will get no real change and the financial sector will run roughshod over people till the next collapse.
Its a real shame.
I agree
Honestly, i bet I could write up a Party platform in about a couple of hours, including social issues that could be embraced by most of the U.S. frankly.
It's TV, media and money, special interests that pulls those things into major wedge (talk radio, should mention that one).