Ten trillion is the number, and who do the robber barons intend to take this poultry sum from, why the citizens of this crumbling republic.

Your elected officials in this police state have made damn sure there would be no way for you to fight back, and then robbed you, the republic and the world of prosperity for the foreseeable future.

While this process has been paralyzing the populace the corporations continue to destroy all that is clean in this world.

More bread, more circus please the fall of the empire is on the monitor.

Doon’t these politicians every get sick of brown nosing, kneeling gratefully before their masters. Does being a representative of the American people mean that little. Is there no sense of the efforts and sacrifices made across the centuries

All joking aside, Dodd is an enemy to the American People.

By FiftyGigs, March 18 at 9:05 pm #

What “liberal” media are you talking about??!! Does it exist?! Does this “liberal” media support progressive taxation, controlling the influence of big business/finance and is calling for equitable distribution of wealth.
Does this “liberal” media are calling for strong labor unions, good schools, secure retirement and universal health care for all ..etc ..etc??!!
That the so called “liberal” media is nothing but a figment of your imagination!

“On Monday [Dodd] made a big show of introducing
legislation to rein in Wall Street, having failed to
elicit a single Republican vote after months of
caving in.”

Yea, let’s beat up Dodd. There’s a plan!

Last night, poor Lawrence O’Donnell was scratching
his little head trying to figure out why oh why
President Obama went on Fox. Was it, he wondered,
some effort to sway DEMOCRATS???

Liberal bias.

Not a single Republican contributes. Not a single
Republican is clued in. So, who do think the liberal
media attacks?

So enlightened are they.

Liberal media is the air support in warfare that’s
petrified of heights, so it occupies itself in the
barracks with criticisms of the foot soldiers. Brave!

Sad. The timidity of liberal media has given rise to
this dominant conservative culture we now live in.

P.S. The President went on Fox to take the fight to
conservatives. It’s called an offensive. It’s a
tactic used against opponents.

Believe or not, some of them feel the heat from the
nonsense being spouted in their name. Their only
comfort? That liberal media is on their side.

Are you so weak you can’t fight?

Try asking a conservative, just one then I promise
I’ll shut up, how he can be pro-life but against
living. Ask one why he doesn’t opt out of his
government-run health plan. Ask one why he believes
God doesn’t want us to care for each other. Ask one
about what he plans to do to stop socialized medicine
for veterans. Ask one how he considers it moral for
children to die because they aren’t profitable.

Don’t be afraid. Face the enemy and they will run.

Call Robert Scheer’s ‘treatment’ here “The Anatomy of a Caper,” and many of the comments have the tone of a combination autopsy/indictment.  Yet there seems a certain reluctance to really delve into the details of “....how we got into this mess.”  Maybe that’s because to do so will lay plenty of its ‘blame’ right at the feet of the CONgenitally ‘self’-idolizing americanpeople theirownselfs, who are presently wallowing so slap-happily in the P-C cesspool of co-dependent/enabler false victimhood.

Read The Document.  It was designed to guarantee that “....your huddled masses” could hardly help becoming complicit in their own degradation (by buying-into the pathological CONceits of the ‘dominance’ paradigm) at the bloody hands of those much more practiced-at it’s methods and ruthless-in-pursuit-of its objectives.  The ruse has succeeded completely.

So like-it-or-lump-it, the real cause of not just “damage”-to but the wholesale destruction-of “....(y)our way of life,” americans, IS your damned allamericanwayof’life’ itself.

HokaHey!

That’s life on the street; With a gang ruling it.
A country gang, being much larger; militarily stronger; thus less gunshy; especially on some country streets, than a biker, another street, or mafioso gang,has a much easier time and a lot more fun in garding-expanding own turf.

But american gangsters had teachers: priests of all stripes, ancient and modern ‘nobility’ [self-proclaimed, of course].

No, americans are not called aghas, amirs, kings, kings priests,lords, earls, counts, dukes, princes, et al.
They have been banished from most lands. But only nominally! So, the more things change the madder i get. Kids, i am eating my heart out! tnx

Solving the Lehman Problem Dodd’s Bill Does Not Touch -
The Friday, March 12th New York Times article entitled Lehman Hid Borrowing ,
Examiner Says, reads:

By May and June of 2008, a Lehman senior vice president, Matthew Lee, wrote
to senior management and the firm’s auditors at Ernest & Young flagging
“accounting improprieties.” Neither Lehman executives nor Ernest & Youg
alerted the firm’s board about Mr. Lee’s allegations, according to the report.

So, a Senior Vice President attempted to draw attention to issues exposing
Lehman to signficant risk, but the formal channels blocked that information
from moving to the board?

“Employees need to be able to let the board of directors know when they see
something that threatens performance or exposes the company to risk.“ Jon
McBride and Jim Hostetler make this germane point in their article     “Board
Champions for the Ombudsman,”

McBride and Hostetler continue later in their article,

Herb Allison, former chief executive of financial services company TIAA-CREF
(Blog Author’s note: Allison currently serves as Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury for Financial Stability and oversees the Troubled Asset Relief Program)
notes that an ombudsman can tie together a company’s directors and
employees and help assure that when problems do arise, directors can know
about them and take steps to address them. “An ombudsman provides another
avenue for a company to surface and address concerns so they reach the board
sooner rather than later.”

Sooner rather than later indeed.  Think for one moment about an alternative
scenario. Mr. Lee approaches the Lehman Organizational Ombudsman, a
skilled professional, operating a properly structured program, with appropriate
reporting lines to the Chairman of the Board and the Audit Committee. The
issues are safely raised. Lehman’s board leads a responsible set of counter
measures. The Investment Bank does not collapse. The rest of the financial
system is concerned, but not at risk. The Bailout is not required, or only at a
fraction of the amount actually spent in our reality.

How different would the economy, our political situation, our future be, had
this alternative scenario occurred?

By managing a problem early, more options exist, and less total cost is needed
to resolve it. An Ombudsman for Lehman would have cost less than a million
dollars per year, and would have likely returned many millions of dollars in
value to the organization BESIDES managing this event.

Interestingly, this article starts on the Times front page and continues on B2.
Facing the article on B3? A discussion about the Financial Reform Bill and the
travails is faces on Capital Hill.

Mr. Allison, Senator Dodd, please include this elegant, effective, and valuable
mechanism for managing issues – the Organizational Ombudsman – and
require it for the financial sector.

More at Conflictbenefit.com

Chris Dodd wrote a book to redeem his father’s battered reputation (that would be Senator Thomas Dodd). Maybe Chris Dodd’s son will write a book, someday, to try to redeem his father’s reputation (that would be Senator Chris Dodd).

Maybe the Dodd family could start a series of books, one for each generation of Dodd disappointments.

And where is the complicity-in-chief?

No doubt letting those criminal bribers do their worst just as he
is letting the health care thing go on through to his non-social
agendas, ticking them off one at a time.

And what an epitaph for the one who should be using his oh so
persuasive reconciliatory powers to help or demand this
monetary BS ponzi scheme be regulated? Naw, that would be the
‘change to believe in’ and that was chucked away 2 minutes after
he was given the presidency.

Samson:  “You want the candidate who’s so broke that he can’t afford to be on TV.  You want the candidate who’s first ignored, then ridiculed, then attacked by the corporate owners of the TV stations.  When you see that, then you know that there’s at least a chance that that person will represent you instead of wall street.”
  Why wouldn"t this be an exciting change in the political wind that would attract many, many voters:  Simply DO NOT vote for any candidate (regardless of party)  who takes corporate/Wall Street/banking money and runs elaborate ads promoting himself to get you to vote for him.  Search out the alternatives, no matter the party, ask them what they stand for, and if they seem halfway okay, vote for them BECAUSE they have no money for advertising.  Might be interesting; couldn’t be worse.

Mr. Dodd and others like him will be known for selling their countrymen into slavery.

In their betrayl of this country they leave behind a legacy of graft, pain, suffering, and millions of lives ruined, comforted in the knowledge that they got theirs.

The remedy’s to the plunder of this country would have been painful to the crooks that now run things, but not as painful as those that will come as the collapse of the financial pyramid they created accelerates.

The time will come, when there will be no place to hide, from the wrath of the disposessed. 

You had a chance to do something, but you took the easy way out. You are a coward Mr. Dodd.

Scheer wrote:
“But let’s hope there’s more to this bill than meets my eye and that the lobbyists don’t get to gut it further. It’s still a work in progress with some good points, the House bill is better, and it is time that Congress hears much more from the suffering public.”
___________________________________________________

Keep dreaming.! How anyone expect a REAL regulation of Wall St. by Congress and the aministeration, if Wall St. owns and controls Congress and the administeration.??!!
At the end of the day, what these new regulations will be nothing but a mechanism and procedures for the many coming bail-outs in the future for the too-big-fail fiascos of Wall St.
Hey, Wall St. has discovered a very easy way to make money which is to raid the treasury each couple of years or so. It is very easy and Wall St. will have everything on stand by for the next bail-out.

Why does the moral honesty of being to small to survive, still not feel all that great?

Dodd a politician of ill repute and notability, does things like most politicians.  Saying they hoped something did not pass if it did or saying they hoped it would have passed if id did not!

“Glass-Steagall Act’s separation of investment and banking firms, a regulation that Dodd, along with New York Democrat Charles Schumer, helped kill a decade ago.” 

Yeah!... Dodd great handling of the Glass Steagall- Act, After that, I wouldn’t trust you with a butter knife to kill a cube of butter,  but then I am not a lobbyist!

On language of “lame”: ableist.  Lame duck has been around a long time.  But it doesn’t have to be copied.

I hope people have read Sen. Ted Kaufman’s letter to the President and Congress http://kaufman.senate.gov/press/floor_statements/statement/?id=de804dbb-6dc3-4537-8c5d-81496714ed73 and go from there on what needs to be done on this bill.  Christpopher Dodd will most likely work as a lobbyist in the banking/financial industry once he retires.  I wish for once reporters/pundits would ask questions to all members of Congress and the Whitehouse (including ex-members) about Al Qaeda’s 20 yr. Plan.  Al Qaeda wants the U.S. to fight “The War on Terror” on their turf; spending billions of dollars on defense and recruiting sympathisers in the U.S. and abroad.  Al Qaeda hates the West for capitalism and corporate interests.  Politicians are just feeding into their beliefs and letting the U.S. destroy itself.  “The War on Terror” is happening in our own backyard while Al Qaeda is saying the U.S. is percolating along just fine…

The same strategy is being followed by the Dems for all issues, including the environment, human rights (remember Guantanamo?), peace, immigration, the social safety net and social security, education, infrastructure, etc.  In each case, Republicans are the alleged barrier to progress, but in the end the Dems deliver what the corporate interests who fund their campaigns want. 
Let’s face it, we are not a democracy.  We are a plutocracy, a huge monopolistic corporate machine that is on its profit-maximizing autopilot to reward the few at the expense of everyone and everything else.

This is getting so tiresome.

Clearly much of the American economic and social systems are openly corrupt and have corrupted almost everyone in them. Participants who aren’t initially infected with the “fundamental greed” character flaw either soon acquire it or are never heard from again.

So tiresome. Everyone’s SO SMART - but not smart enough to learn from history apparently.

PS ... typo in the Schumer list below.  The last five entries (where ‘lobbyist’ repeats) are obviously from the Dodd list but in the wrong place.

Maplight.org is a wonderful site.  Easy name to remember as they say thier mission is ‘shining LIGHT onto Money And Politics’

I’ve been watching politics for many years.  And, if someone showed me the contribution lists of the two gentlemen, I’d listed below, without telling me the names, my old-school brain would say that these were both Republicans.

Democrats used to get their money from labor unions and teachers and various issue pacs like Emily’s list or the Sierra club or something of the like.  Now you see that they get all their money from investment firms, insurance companies and banks.

Is it any wonder they govern just exactly like the Republicans who get their money from investment firms, insurance companies and banks?

Never vote for the candidate who has the money to be on your TV set.  They are not on your side.  You can always look these days and see something just like this.  And if you elect them, this is who they will serve.

You want the candidate who’s so broke that he can’t afford to be on TV.  You want the candidate who’s first ignored, then ridiculed, then attacked by the corporate owners of the TV stations.  When you see that, then you know that there’s at least a chance that that person will represent you instead of wall street.

So, the guy who gets millions from wall street is going to be the guy writing ‘finance reform’.  Wonderful, simply wonderful.

From maplight.org ....

Chris Dodd
Total Campaign Contributions Received: $20,623,041
Total Campaign Contributions Received: $20,623,041
Top 10 Interests Funding
Interest   Contributions
Securities & Investment   $4,021,181
Lawyers/Law Firms   $1,933,332
Insurance   $1,379,763
Real Estate   $1,293,497
Banks and Credit   $1,170,244
Lobbyists   $544,794
TV/Movies/Music   $475,720
Misc Finance   $455,120
Accountants   $440,900
Health Professionals   $392,300

Charles Schumer
Total Campaign Contributions Received: $9,823,783
Top 10 Interests Funding
Interest   Contributions
Securities & Investment   $1,475,610
Lawyers/Law Firms   $1,107,611
Real Estate   $824,839
Insurance   $354,600
Misc Finance   $354,250
Banks and Credit   $258,000
Health Professionals   $241,470
Business Services   $224,850
TV/Movies/Music   $214,150
Lobbyists   $204,920
Lobbyists   $544,794
TV/Movies/Music   $475,720
Misc Finance   $455,120
Accountants   $440,900
Health Professionals   $392,300

“On Monday he made a big show of introducing legislation to rein in Wall Street, having failed to elicit a single Republican vote after months of caving in. “

Sounds like the familiar pattern that we saw with health care.  The Democrats start by negotiating essentially with themselves, and by caving in on every key point in that process.  This is done with the fiction of that all of these cave-ins and giveaways are necessary for bi-partisanship.

But then, in the end, the Democrats get no Republican votes.  And they certainly won’t take back all the giveaways they made in the phantom negotiations.  If there are no Republican votes, one would think any smart legislative leader who then go back to a tougher bill that only Democrats could support.  But no .....

Of course, the real negotiation is between the Democrats and the people with money who paid to put them in office.  They always get what they want.  The so-called negotiations for bi-partisanship are just smokescreen cover for the Democrats selling our government to them.

Those that challenge FDR’s bank reform are either ignorant of history or are too busy reading Ayn Rand’s moron episodes. The FIDC is the only saving grace of the banks and credit unions.
Why do repugs think that risk taking is the Utopian way? Wall street is, with out a doubt, the casino that runs amok using tax-payer’s dollars and cloak and dagger camouflaged security’s that even Warren Buff doesn’t understand.
Good article Robert Scheer.Dodd reminds me of his daddy another low-life.

The best financial reform would be to remove the government guarantee of bailouts (TARP, Fed, FDIC, FHA, etc.) that creates moral-hazard and encourages reckless risk-taking with other people’s money. While we are at it, we should end the special liability protection corporations afford to individuals. Make people responsible for their actions, and they take more prudent risks.

Friends of my friends are my friends.
I’d bet that Dodd and Schumer never met a bankster who was not their friend.
They row their boats for themselves and their friends and the “suffering public” are like undiscovered,underwater creatures from the deep.