5 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. Todays' GOP is trying hard to prove Mr. Mann to be wrong….

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2. I'm dying to see how MIchael Bennet comes out of the chute next year.

   Will he continue with the losing "conservadem" strategy? Will he be one of the last of the Blue Dogs? Will he be one of the last of the Wall Street Democrats?

   Wall Street is one of the Democratic party's biggest contributors.

   The Street donated $49.1 million to Democrats in 2010, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. Hedge-fund managers alone accounted for $5.88million of the total. Schumer and a few other influential Democrats were among the industry's major beneficiaries.

   Wall Street has continued to be generous to Democrats (as well as to Republicans).

   The Democrats' unwillingness to close the carried-interest loophole when they could also goes some way to explaining why, almost six years after Wall Street's near meltdown, the Obama administration has done so little to rein in the Street.

   Wall Street's biggest banks are far bigger now than they were then, yet they still have no a credible plan for winding down their operations if they get into trouble.

   The Dodd-Frank Act, designed to prevent another Wall Street failure, has been watered down so much it's slush.

   Not a not a single Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for his involvement in the frauds that caused the mess.

   Wall Street was the fourth-largest contributor to Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008, and is already gearing up for Hillary Clinton's 2016 run.

   I think Bennet is hoping to ride Hillary's coattails on a substance free campaign to an easy re-election in '16. That's most likely what our Benign Overlords here think will happen, hence the 80% re-elect odds. I think those odds give Bennet way too much credit, and as Democratic voters have shown quite clearly: it isn't the money you have or the campaign you run, it's the job you do before the campaign that counts.

   Bennet hasn't done much of a job up until now. It's about time he starts.

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3. From Congressman Polis' Facebook feed this evening:

   So with barely a day to read it before we have to vote on it, the Republicans finally presented a massive $1.1 trillion "cromnibus" spending bill… Needless to say I'll be spending tonight and tomorrow studying the over 1600 pages but I've already found these gems:
   1) It raises the contribution limits that an individual can give to a political party from $32,400 to $324,000 giving the wealthy and special interests even more power and gutting campaign finance reform
   2) Blocks Washington DC from legalizing marijuana even though DC voters approved it
   3) Increases deficit spending for defense to $490 billion including $74 billion in new money for military operations that Congress has not authorized

   So anyway, that's what I'll be reading all night, who needs sleep?
   They claim to have put this bill on the web but the main link is broken. But I did find an active link to the section by section of a scanned in copy:
   http://rules.house.gov/bill/113/hr-83

   Pay no attention to the bill title. It's called "To require the Secretary of the Interior to assemble a team of technical, policy, and financial experts to address the energy needs of the insular areas of the United States and…" but that's just a "zombie bill" name and they carved that out and instead put in $1.1 trillion in spending and gave members of Congress less than two days to find all the hidden pork.

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   1. Time to let my conservative Congresscritters know that I don't like their stinkin' budget.

      I really wish Dems would take the offensive on this one, get on every media outlet, bring in people to tell the story of how it will affect them.

      And what the hell is an "insular area of the United States", anyway?

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      1. Insular: since it involves the interior dept, perhaps an end run on leasing restrictions ( drill, baby, drill) Or , a bailout for the poor energy companies getting screwed by falling oil prices.  Insular- a rogue band of millionaire cowboys  (over half of the 535 congressional body are indeed, millionaires).

         Bill Moyers recent segment; any effort to petition congress( by citizens)  results in absolutely NO MOVEMENT OF THE NEEDLE. Study: Congress spends over half of their time dialing for dollars to perpetuate the cycle.

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