THE CONGRESSIONAL SLUSH FUND

Excellent piece on slush funds in Washington.

Everything's More Popular Than Congress!

Matt Taibbi ~ Senators Grovel, Embarrass Themselves At Dimon Hearing | Shift FrequencyShift Frequency

Matt Taibbi ~ Senators Grovel, Embarrass Themselves At Dimon Hearing | Shift FrequencyShift Frequency:

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Senate re=enact scene from latest Wayne's world for Jaime Dimon

OPINION ~ I was unable to watch J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s Senate testimony live the other day, so I had to get up yesterday morning and check it out on the Banking Committee’s web site. I had an inkling, from the generally slavish news reportsabout the hearing that started to come out Wednesday night, that it would be a hard thing to watch.

But I wasn’t prepared for just how bad it was. If not for Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, who was the only senator who understood the importance of taking the right tone with Dimon, the hearing would have been a total fiasco. Most of the rest of the senators not only supplicated before the blow-dried banker like love-struck schoolgirls or hotel bellhops, they also almost all revealed themselves to be total ignoramuses with no grasp of the material they were supposed to be investigating.

That most of them had absolutely no conception of even the basics of the derivatives market was obvious. But what was even more amazing was that several of them had serious trouble even reading aloud the questions their more learned staffers prepared for them. Many seemed to be reading their own questions for the first time.

It would be one thing if this had been a bunch of hick congressmen from the plains asking a panel of MIT professors about, say, ozone depletion, or the potential dangers of nuclear fallout. But these were members of the Senate Banking Committee, asking Dimon questions as though he were an alien from another world: “Tell us, Mr. CEO, what is this ‘derivative trading’ to which you refer? How long has it been in use on your planet?” The whole tenor of the proceeding was incredibly embarrassing, and showed just how unlikely it is that you’ll ever get anything like real questioning in a Senate hearing when a) the level of general expertise among the members is so shamefully low, and b) the witness is a man who controls millions of dollars of campaign contributions.

The senators could have used the hearing as an opportunity to grill Dimon in detail about the entire history of the Chief Investment Office, the unit of Chase that recently copped tounexpected multibillion-dollar derivative trading losses. This was an opportunity to show Americans how a too-big-to-fail commercial bank like Chase – supported by vast amounts of public treasure, from Fed loans to bailouts to less obvious subsidies like GSE purchases of mortgages and implicit guarantees of bank debt – uses the crutch of government support to gamble recklessly in search of huge profits, with the public on the hook for any potential downside.

The senators should have interrogated Dimon about his role in moving toward that reckless gambling strategy. Instead, they mostly cowered and cringed and sat mute with thumbs in their mouths, while Dimon evaded, patted himself on the back, and blew the whole derivative losses episode off as an irrelevant accident caused by moron subordinates

...Again, what was most disturbing was the tone of the hearing. The senators treated Dimon like a visiting dignitary and a teacher of great wisdom, not like a man who, after growing very rich off of public money, had put the whole economy at risk by engaging in wildly unsafe financial sex on a grand scale. Senators are like judges – the way they comport themselves in public is important, and it’s important that they work at maintaining the dignity of their offices. You don’t get to snort and roll your eyes in front of a judge, and you shouldn’t get to do on the floor of the senate, especially when you’re there because you violated the public trust. Somebody has to remind these legislators who it is they work for, and it’s not Jamie Dimon.

full story: http://shiftfrequency.com/matt-taibbi-senators-grovel-embarrass-themselves-at-dimon-hearing/#more-11155

From the daily Daily Kos: friends with benefits: Senators roll out red carpet for Jamie Dimon

Daily Kos: Open thread for night owls: Senators roll out red carpet for Jamie Dimon:

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You give this kind of cash and you have plenty of friends with benefits.

 SEN. BOB CORKER (R-TN): We’re here quizzing you. If you were sitting on this side of the dais, what would you do to make our system safer than it is and still meet the needs of a global economy like we have?

(American Banker)

SEN. MIKE CRAPO (R-ID): Many people say our primary focus from our perspective in terms of policy should be to make sure the banks are properly capitalized. Should that be our primary focus and what other areas of oversight would be the most effective for us in terms of our regulatory structure?

SEN. JIM DEMINT (R-SC): I would like to come away from the hearing today with some ideas on what you think we need to do, what we maybe need to take apart that we’ve already done, to allow the industry to operate better.

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): And you said something else that really sort caught me by surprise, and that was this testimony that nobody got all the parties in a room with people in your industry — Democrats, Republicans, and folks affected — and talked about what was needed and what really needed to be fixed. Did I hear you correctly there? Did you volunteer to be part of that conversation?

Full story here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/13/1099792/-Open-thread-for-night-owls-Senators-roll-out-red-carpet-for-Jamie-Dimon

This reminds me of the tough response Texas congressman Joe Barton apologizing to BP for getting any Texas sand under BPs oil because that's what you want in a congress someone who genuflects to business on site.

After the meeting Barton went into the full grovel.

How The Banks Bought The Tea Party

How The Banks Bought The Tea Party:

 "The 15 freshmen Republican representatives in the House Tea Party Caucus each ran in 2010 on a populist anti-Wall Street message, highlighting their opposition to bank bailouts like the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and criticizing Washington for enabling the banking sector as it became “Too Big to Fail.” After winning, all fifteen received significant PAC contributions from the banking industry — and have become a reliable vote and mouthpiece for the financial industry, a ThinkProgress analysis of campaign contributions, voting records and public statements reveals.

Rather than campaigning on a typical pro-business platform, the Tea Party freshmen tapped into public resentment of big banks and bailouts. For example, then-candidate Sandy Adams (R-FL) said on her campaign website that she “opposes government bailouts” and “would have voted against TARP and the auto bailout.” Jeff Landry (R-LA) said bailouts of private businesses had “corrupted our free market system by rewarding the irresponsible and penalizing the responsible,” blasting “bank bailouts, which led to taxpayer money directly or indirectly going into multi-million dollar bonuses.”

But in Congress, the Tea Party has toed the line for big banks. Eleven of the 15 have become co-sponsors of H.R. 3461, a top priority for the ABA. According to Americans for Financial Reform, the legislation would “tilt the playing field further in the direction of excessive deference to industry interests and tie the hands of regulators attempting to protect the public interest.” The bill would make it harder for bank examiners to do their job, giving regulatory responsibilities to an industry that’s already shown it can’t police itself.

Here is what happened:

full story here: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/21/484283/how-banks-bought-the-tea-party/?mobile=nc

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I think this says it all

One of only senators out there: Wall St. and Congress: Who Regulates Who?

The Distinguished Gentleman Part 4 This is both very funny and profound

Freshman congressman Eddie Murphy goes to Washington on a fluke.

Rep. John Lewis Speaks Out Against GOP Voter Suppression Efforts

Ed Schultz goes off on the gutting of the post office by US Congress

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bobby Rush Gets Kicked Off House Floor For Wearing Hoodie For Trayvon

Afraid of a hoodie how can they hope to stand up to Iran.

Joe the Plumber Campaign Slogans | National Lampoon. My person favorite Joe the Plumber: Laying Pipe for Liberty

Joe the Plumber Campaign Slogans | National Lampoon

Outlawing Occupy: H.R. 347 Makes Free Speech A Felony - Watching Frogs Boil - Open Salon

Outlawing Occupy: H.R. 347 Makes Free Speech A Felony - Watching Frogs Boil - Open Salon

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America reads as follows:


"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

At 7:03pm ET on Tuesday, 28 February 2012, our 112th Congress violated this covenant with the American people by voting 399 to 3 in favor of H.R. 347, a bill which breezed through the Senate with unanimous consent and now lacks only corporate fascist puppet President Barack Obama's signature to become law. The three patriots who voted Nay were Paul Broun (R-GA-10), Justin Amash (R-MI-3) and Ron Paul (R-TX-14). The traitors who voted Yea are listed here:

LP - Just criminal

ForProfitConsultants

We should get out front and bribe them early. This is what's wrong with our democracy. These people make you throw up. As somebody who took part in card check they probably should have put up a sign that they were already bought.

Hank For Senate - "The Greatest Land of All"

It's about time we get a candidate we can rally behind. He'll just take more naps or congresses time off.

A golden oldie. Probably even more true today than it was back then

Joe the Plumber's Next Campaign Is for Congress - The Daily Beast

Joe the Plumber's Next Campaign Is for Congress - The Daily Beast

Populist rage pulses across the nation. Class warfare is in the air. So, as the GOP presidential primary heads to blue-collar, Bible Belt South Carolina, it seemed like a good time to check in with everybody’s favorite 2008 everyman icon, Joe the Plumber, now running for Congress as a Republican in Ohio, the mother of all swing states.

Joe, né Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, 38, has not endorsed anyone in the presidential contest. But he misses the man he considers a political mentor. No, not John McCain, whose embrace of Joe the Plummer in the 2008 race made him a household name, before scrutiny of his plumbing credentials scuffed up his man-of-the-people street cred. The man Wurzelbacher wishes were still running: Herman Cain.

“The media throws up somebody and says this could be it. They give him a week, he raises money and then they tear him down,” Wurzelbacher laments, recalling Cain’s come-from-nowhere, go-back-to-nowhere trajectory.

GOP Rep. Womack Yells At Constituents.mp4

He's serious listening right until they throw him right out of office.

Your US congress

Despise Congress? We Are The 95%! | Crooks and Liars

Despise Congress? We Are The 95%! Crooks and Liars

Feign shock while you read this: the latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds just 5 percent of “Likely Voters rate the job Congress is doing as good or excellent.

”Yes, 5 percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good job. Which means 5 percent of those polled didn’t understand the question.