It's the health care debate/bill all over again. It remains to be seen if Democrats learn from experience and allow months of delaying tactics--- and if need be invoke the nuclear option to break a filibuster.

Where have you gone Yogi Berra ,
Our Nation turns its lonely ears to you ,
Your lovely malpropisms ,
Woo , woo , woo
Koo , koo , ca choo ,
Madame Tea Baggeurs ,
Jesus loves you more than you will know ,
Whoa , whoa whoa
Whoa , whoa , whoa

Its like Deja Vous !
All over again !

Here, Charlie Brown, I'll hold the ball, you kick it.

During the health care reform bill structuring, the Dems gave up proposal after proposal that would have resulted in a much better bill in the misguided attempt to get some illusionary bipartisan support. Specifically the ability of the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare (as it always has for the VA, DOD and Indian Health Services). Also the public option was dropped. Both of these would have brought significant savings.

We will see the identical crap with the finance reform bill. The Dems (and Obama)need to face reality about the Republicans. Bipartisanship is a noble ideal, but in this climate, it's not going to happen.

Remind me never to play football with the current Republican party leaders - they have this peculiar rule regarding goalposts! According to their secret rulebook, if their team needs a quick score, the posts are moved to mid-field where an easy kick can get them points.

As to their opposing team?

They move the goalposts out to the parking lot, in the next town of the adjacent state! -Kevo

Watching Mitch McConnell on the tv literally makes my skin crawl.

God, I hope Moveon.org or other liberal groups take out ads absolutely crucifying McConnell and the Republicans for the shameless way they are protecting Wall Street. Not wanting to change heath care was understandable - wrong, but understandable. Not wanting to reform Wall Street after they nearly drove the American economy into the abyss and then were bailed out by hard-working American taxpayers, is completely unconscionable!

"Small ideas for a small government."
Republican motto right there.
(A government of the small minded people, for the small minded people.)

kinda like groucho and chico negotiating the contract in "night at the opera."

Speaking of "back to the drawing board", perhaps it is time for God to return to the Garden of Eden, and get right this time. . .

I know Republicans want to be taken seriously on public policy, but I can't figure out why anyone would.

But, they don't want to be taken seriously. They don't believe in public policy. They believe in a super private policy, if you will, where the influence of powerful private interests prevail without interference from the government. All of the other less powerful private interests should just fall into line. So if Anthem wants to raise premiums, so be it. If Exxon wants to raise the price of gas an extra $3 a gallon, it must be distortions in the market due to government. These guys just don't believe in government except for the military. That's why they are so incompetent at it. They are just going through the motions with these negotiations.

This fake bipartisanship, where Democrats acquiesce to Republican demands so that Republicans can vote against them anyway, is not buying Democrats anything as far as I can tell. They need to be a little more ruthless in doing what they think is right.

How about a Senate ethics investigation of the NY meeting for Mitchie and Cornyn?

How about an SEC investigation for the banksters at the meeting?

Mebbe somebody would spill the beans about what was discussed.

For God's sake, someone get McConnell some lips!

Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, Caesar's colleague in the consulate of 59 B.C., reborn as a present-day conservative Republican--retires to his house to watch the skies for evil omens after his knee-jerk obstructionism motivates the people to pelt him with manure--emerges occasionally to declare Caesar's legislation invalid and sacriligous

I think McConnell is the type of person that nobody would ever want to do common day busienss with, such as buying groceries from, taking dry cleaning to, have wash your car, provide day care, et cetera. So why in the heck should he be the one leading the US Senate minority bloc doing the peoples' business? Yet there he is?

What has happened to the meaning of public service?

Dodd seems very frustrated and has provided what appears to be a history of the negotiations.

http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Newsroom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=08d0e516-bbe5-8e63-7a92-ccf2c0cc4d8e

FACT CHECK: COMMUNITY BANKS WIN WITH FINANCIAL REFORM

http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Newsroom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=aa56eed0-a537-44e3-d7be-b5dfab28b7f9

Here's the banking committee homepage for a few more tidbits.

http://banking.senate.gov/public/

Rea was subtle , eased from power by Apollo then Zeus .
She had to be
Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was
and under the water
there is water
Where is my beautiful country

Whatever, Dude! Was McConnell called what he is, a liar? Or did the corporate-owned CNN host simply pretend that McConnell's lies and distortions were legit opinion offered in a corporate-owned world wherein every Republican is allowed to have an opinion allowed to be presented as fact? Because, unless and/or until the corporate-owend, Wall Street-bankrolled media starts holding their Republican political whores to account...until that happens, nothing you say or write or present will change the downward trajectory of this nation and what's left of its democracy. Sorry, to be a Negative Nellie, but the truth is the truth!

Well, you know, fool me once etc. This is all in the hands of the Democrats. They can't blame anyone else now.

...As if we needed more evidence that the Republicans are slow learners!

I believe that's the provision that has Canadian banks alarmed as well, since Canadian reforms have been proposed more or less in lockstep with American ones. I haven't read either bill (something I probably share with Republicans) but I read the reaction from the Bank of Nova Scotia's CEO. He says the provision (I'm only guessing it is this particular provision) will require banks to keep a large amount of capital on hand that cannot be otherwise lent or employed. He further says this is an unnecessary punitive measure that does not take into account the various checks and balances already built into the Canadian mortgage and lending systems, which allowed us to emerge from the crisis relatively unscathed.

Although Canadian banks are no less greedy than their Southern counterparts (you want to believe there were shrieks of fury here that national regulations prohibited them from taking advantage of the risky lending packages that were turning into licenses to print money, although now they pretend all their interest was in getting a better profit for their shareholders), as long as such national regulations remain in place such a financial meltdown is unlikely here.

In any case, from an American standpoint, it sounds like that money would have to remain on hand and likely controlled by an honest broker (probably the government),and would not be spent unless a financial institution failed. Therefore, it would be in the collective interest to ensure such failures didn't happen - the opposite of a bailout, as many have said.

However, the argument the banks use here is that they will have no choice but to pass their costs (incurred by having to keep a pool of unused capital lying about, not making money) on to the customer, in the form of higher interest rates and lending fees.

I'm betting you'll start hearing the same argument, if you haven't already. Our interest rates are about to see a significant hike around June anyway, a necessary correction to slow inflation. To some degree yours will rise for the same reason, but I imagine you'll hear it blamed on government meddling.

Once again, it appears the Republican plan for everything is "A clean sheet of paper".

If a tree falls in the forest….

….does it make a sound if Mitch McConnell is not there to deny that a sound was made?

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan

I watched Mitch McConnell on CNN this morning. It takes a lot of fortitude for me to watch this guy, but I wanted to see what he had to say. Well, it was the "same old, same old" or "deja vu all over again." No, we don't like the bill. Democrats ignored our ideas. What ideas? Silence.

So inquiring minds want to know:

1. What do Kentucky community bankers think of this bill?

2. Why is McConnell against a bailout fund paid for by the banks?

3. What other provisions in this bill is McConnell against?

4. What did he discuss with the Wall Street bankers? Did anyone take notes?

Senate Republicans are acting like Wile E. Coyote -- always trying to blow things up.

Intimidation goes only so far. Watch out below!

How much money did Colonel Sanders take from those
Wall Street financiers & what did he do with it?

If the Dems haven't learned by now to ignore the crap coming from the Repubs regarding starting over and changing everything only to vote against it anyways then they should be voted out too. Just tell McConnell and Boner and Cantor to shut the heck up and sit down and when they grow up and become responsible we will deal with them again.

What the Republican's bosses - the pinstriped pimps of Wall Street - are concerned about is the regulation of derivatives, where the real money is found (it was derivatives trading that resulted in the bloodsucking vampire squid, aka Goldman-Sachs, being indicted by the SEC). All the baloney about the anti-bailout fund is just that - baloney. Look at what McConnell isn't talking about to see what that sonofabitch is really working on.

Can anyone ever imagine going to this guy for real, serious, medical work? Most surgeons are Republicans, which tells you something about that trade.

Watching Mitch McConnell on the tv literally makes my skin crawl.
Posted by: Ladyhawke on April 18, 2010 at 11:24 AM |
Buy yourself a gerbil as a pet. By-and-by, you'll learn that they *can be* loving and lovable creatures. Eventually, you ought to be able to tolerate McConnel without suffering the automatic sour reflux. Just make sure that the sound is off on your tee-vee set..

exlibra, that is a nasty insult to gerbils, who, after all, are at least mammals, and nowhere near as vile as Mitch Mcconnell. Near as I can tell, he's some kind of carnivorous turtle that has had its shell surgically removed.

I think his parents should have "gone back to the drawing board."

Oh, God. McConnell is getting the jump on Republican summer re-runs and it's only Spring.

For pity's sake.

Again.

Republicans have SUCCESSFULLY used this strategy. REad the polls. So they are going to do it again. This haughty bs about how immature republicans are is as out of touch with reality as republican economics.

The DC democrats have yet to demonstrate they are capable of competing against Republican stupidity. The Republican strategy will probably work. Odds are the WH, and genius Rahm and his master Barack, will get outmaneuvered by republican nonsense. It is worse than showing up with a knife to a gun fight, it is more like the DC democrats are forefeiting the championship because they went to the wrong arena.

Whenever a DC democrats gets smug, plan on watching republican stuptidity kicking democrats asses.

As long as the Republicans see the forecasts of big gains in November, they have little incentive to change the game plan. The problem is the American public is not holding them accountable.

"[W]hen asked if he would support the bill if Democrats removed that fund, McConnell told CNN's "State of the Union" he would still have other issues with the legislation, though he did not say what those qualms were."

But given time, he'd come up with some.

They're doing it again because by every objective metric, it worked last time. Health Care Reform was killed, with a token Insurance Carrier Bail-out fund passed in its stead.

Here's what's going to happen: the Republicans will stand firm again, those in the far right of the Democratic Party will flex their power and refuse to lend support to anything effective, Obama will take the lead in watering down the proposals until they're ineffective, and then the gaggle of pseudo-liberal hacks will pretend there's nothing more important than passing a bill, any bill, no matter how ridiculous, until it gets passed.

Then, after a while has passed, it'll become obvious it hasn't fixed anything and has, in fact, made matters worse, and liberals will be blamed for the results. The country will drift further to the right as government is shown (again) to "not work", and examples across the world of governments wielding their powers where it's actually useful and effective and good will be ignored as usual, as they have been in American politics for decades.

Why did we support this idiot again? I keep going through his election promises, and they did appear to be progressive. He's failed on so many issues, terrorism policy & torture, war, healthcare, financial accountability, I'm genuinely becoming convinced he'll be invading Iran before the end of his term in office.

Funny about that...closed door session...comes back all anti-bill...who are his paymasters- the US Taxpayers or Goldman Sachs? And somebody better tell Sleestak Mitch to ash those checks pdq