Well, whadda ya know….the Republicans held firm against a cloture vote on the Democrat’s financial reform bill.
For the moment, Republicans have successfully beaten back the Democrat financial regulation overhaul, defeating a cloture motion to begin debate on the partisan bill with 42 votes.
Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), who has been most active in working with Democrats on the bill, voted no on cloture. So did other Republican question marks, including the Maine Ladies Collins and Snowe, Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), who voted for Democratic derivatives language in committee, and Scott Brown (R., Mass.).
In somewhat of a surprise move, Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) joined the Republican filibuster, which means the Democrats will now need two defectors to move ahead.
Nelson joined the Republicans because of language sought by Warren Buffet:
Buffett wanted a provision that would exempt existing derivative contracts from new rules.
And once removed he will go scurrying back to his friends on the left, hell….the man proved he has the spine of a jellyfish on the abortion issue so there is no counting on that man.
What do the Republicans want changed? A few things but most importantly on how the fed handles failing businesses. The way the current bill is written the fed will put 50 billion away for failing banks but the Republicans want that eliminated completely so no bail outs occur.
Basically saying that no business is too big to fail, and that is right on the money.
Jeff at Protein Wisdom thinks the Democrats will move onto immigration for a number of reasons:
The move to push immigration reform center stage at a time of high unemployment and unsustainable debt — made worse by enormous increases in federal entitlement spending — will be a cynical gamble on the part of Democrats, who realize that come November, they are likely to lose significant numbers in Congress anyway, and so will make a last ditch effort to swing public perception back in their favor by casting their opponents as anti-immigrant. Even should they fail, the thinking goes, they’ll help perpetuate a branding of Tea Partiers as fringe actors and angry white Christian rednecks — marketing being, in a country filled with low-information voters (who, thanks to the self-esteem movement and the dumbing down of civic education, believe themselves to be “politically active” and “aware”), the most important aspect of politics.
And the GOP establishment and its pragmatist mouthpieces — always on the lookout to find a defensive posture from which to dignify such cynical attacks — might just play right into the hands of Democrats by their inevitable ritual scapegoating of at least one or two vocal conservatives, who they’ll deem unclean.
Will the GOP play right into their hands tho? Or have they learned?
We shall see.
See author page
Ben Nelson is trying very hard to erase the memory of the CornHusker Kickback from voters’ minds.
I don’t think this fairly minute gesture is going to cut it.
Ben Nelson is trying very hard to get re-elected. Nothing more.
From the Washington (com)Post:
Let’s recall that Sen. Shelby was the one who sabotaged President Bush’s efforts to rein in Fanny and Freddy in his Committee in 2005.
He’s a RINO of the first magnitude.
Don’t worry Curt, The Republicans will cave soon enough…
Hello GuffaUK. A little something for you good buddy!
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=18820
Regards good buddy!
Remember that Sen. Shelby was elected as a Democrat before he found it convenient to switch. Beware of switchers!!!
Wasn’t Buffet begging to be made exempt?
Too much money saying this is a bad idea.
Greed can be a wonderful tool.
This is another excellent example of the effective unified leadership the GOP has in the Senate.
But something tells me that to some of our conservative malcontents will still not be satisfied.
Expect one to come here and prove me right in 3,2,1…….
For the moment, Republicans have successfully beaten back the Democrat financial regulation overhaul, defeating a cloture motion to begin debate on the partisan bill with 42 votes.
Oh, good for them.
Now all they have to do is somehow convince the general public that coming down on the side of the same special interests that nearly crashed the entire national economy is somehow a good thing.
I can’t believe they’re missing such an obvious set up.
And I can’t believe you’d fall for such a horse manure talking points line, Greg.
Maybe you’ll ponder a while that, if Goldman Sachs is such a bad guy, how come about six of Goldman’s finest are working with da Zero in the WH? Think the POTUS will refund their almost a mil contributions? Yeah… I’ll hold my breath on that one.
Or perhaps you still haven’t figured out the six degrees of separation between Obama, Goldman Sachs and the value of being his public whipping boy to whip up a crisis and push thru some special legislation? A little quid pro quo going on in the back room, ya think? They need cap and trade badly, being a heavy hitter investor in Chicago Climate Exchange. my my…. shall Obama accomplish that one via reconciliation? Or “fundamentally remaking” EPA regulations, as he’s threatened to do if it doesn’t pass?
Yup… they’re quite happy to be the convenient whipping boy.
BTW, the “special interests” that bears the prime responsibility for the housing, and thereby the financial melt down, was that special interest group called Congress.
@Greg said: “Now all they have to do is somehow convince the general public that coming down on the side of the same special interests that nearly crashed the entire national economy. ”
Another phony talking point. Perhaps Greg isn’t aware that Wall Street fat cats were among the top campaign contributors to Obama.
Greg might also be unaware that the American people are sick and tired of government bailouts, which Republicans filibustered, and don’t want to see any more Obama style government takeovers.
Something tells me the lies and phony talking points about the GOP aren’t going to fly this time.
The boy has cried wolf once too often.
Mike, did you miss my comment or something?
You’re slipping dude…
@Mata, you said:
Couldn’t agree with you more. I think the GOP will hold fast this time, but when amnesty rolls around…
How do I post a link?
I am trying to point to a book and say type in Communism and look for page 97.
Mata explained this perfectly. The connections between this administration, Obama, Goldman Sachs and the Chicago Climate Exchange are unreal…
Love him or hate him, Glenn Beck did a decent job this Monday pointing out the connections between all of them but you won’t see that on the MSM because we know that anything coming from Fox News is just crazy talk….
AN OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR SCOTT BROWN
Dear Senator Brown,
Your press release gave your reasons for voting to block open Senate discussion on financial reform – you want to “protect the safety of the financial system and the interests of taxpayers and consumers”…that this bill and its “serious problems” “would leave taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts”, “hurt jobs in Massachusetts, including small businesses” – but no supportive detail re the content of the financial reform bill which guided your conclusion.
Have you read the bill? I ask because on Jan 10, 2010, in an Op-ed in Boston Globe, you wrote the Stimulus (ARRA) “had not created a single job”. You repeated same on Feb 4 at your signing-in ceremony, and you were disdainful. Yet on Dec 31, 2009, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued a formal report, copy online, detailing that in 3 months alone, Oct to Dec 2009, 13,879 jobs in your state had been created by ARRA! Since then ARRA poured more funds & jobs into Mass AND $5.5 billion tax cuts & COBRA/unemployment subsidies.
On financial reform, Sen. Bob Corker (R) already refuted GOP allegations like yours from the Senate floor, asserting how the $50 billion fund which banks must pay, NOT taxpayers, “is anything but a bailout….it is to provide upfront funding by the industry so that if these companies are seized, there’s money available to make payroll and to wind it down while the pieces are being sold off”, thus protecting taxpayers.
Your press release is confusing. As a new US senator, when your words raise serious issues we look to you for substantive responses not Frank Luntz style statements. Could it perhaps be your pro-business, pro-banks, anti-middle-class Republican voting record is getting in the way of your commonsense, since the “serious problems” in this bill will be for Wall St, not taxpayers or small businesses.
Dear Truthfairy,
Oh please! Frank, Dodd and Co knowingly and deliberately SET UP the existing financial debacle plaguing the US many, many years ago. Forcing/intimidating institutions into loaning billions to thoroughly unqualified buyers, covering up for Fannie and Freddie–the fingerprints of the radical left are all over this manufactured crisis. And the current “attack Wall Street” theatre, brought to us by Hussein and his ilk is pure politics, through and through. The end game? Why absolute power and authority for our acting president, of course.
“And I can’t believe you’d fall for such a horse manure talking points line, Greg.”
I wasn’t pushing the talking point so much as making an observation about the political strategy behind it.
No one has to convince mainstream voters that irresponsible behavior in the financial sector nearly wrecked the American economy. That’s already their perception. While regular people are still feeling the acute pain of their losses, high-profile people in an industry that they trusted with their money seem to have made out like bandits. Worse yet, they’ve made no display of remorse. Oblivious to the PR consequences, they’ve reaped multi-million dollar bonuses instead of penalties.
Rightly or wrongly, mainstream America now has an attitude toward the entire industry. Anger, resentment, and distrust pretty much sum that attitude it up. Regular people feel like helpless pawns in a game that’s rigged entirely for someone else’s benefit.
What surprises me is that GOP strategists don’t appear to be aware of the political landmine this prevailing attitude represents. Maybe the word “landmine” hasn’t been printed clearly enough on the financial reform package.
By the way, according to an April 27, 2010 Wall Street Journal article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/04/27/wall-street-rules-help-gop-fill-campaign-coffers/tab/article/