McCaskill: Republicans Like "Transformer Toys" on Financial Crisis

Flying under the radar in a week filled with Wall-Street turmoil was an excellent speech given on the Senate floor by Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in which she pummeled John McCain and the Republican party for their stupefying hypocrisy on deregulating the financial services industry.

Speaking on Thursday, McCaskill talked about how under the GOP financial firms have acted like teenagers with Mom and Dad gone for the weekend and called the anti-government Republicans on how, like the Transformer toys, they're now rushing like mad to shift their shapes.

"Here is the thing that is killing me -- it is just killing me," said the Missouri Senator. "All of the folks who have been screaming: Deregulation, get government off our backs, evil government off our backs, big bad government off our backs, deregulate, deregulate, deregulate -- in the last 24 hours there has been -- do you remember the transformer toys that went from an animal to a massive machine? We have transformers around here."

"These massive deregulation advocates all of a sudden say: We have to enforce rules on Wall Street. We have to regulate."

McCaskill also jumped on how GOP opportunists like McCain -- who are also scurrying to cover for their records over the last two decades -- suddenly think government has a role in protecting American taxpayers and now advocate a law-and-order approach with their Wall-Street benefactors.

"They are enforcing it today. Why wasn't it enforced last week? Why weren't the rules enforced the week before? Why weren't the rules enforced last year?" asked McCaskill. "They didn't want to. It is pretty simple. Nobody wanted to enforce the rules. Why not? Because the titans of Wall Street were in charge. The titans of Wall Street have had their way with this White House."

Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama hammered on McCain all last week, citing the fact that the Republican chameleon has always considered himself "fundamentally a deregulator" and is hungry to inflict some of the same damage he helped cause in the financial markets on the health care industry.

"My opponent actually wrote in the current issue of a health care magazine 'opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation,'" Obama said, quoting McCain. "So let me get this straight - he wants to run health care like they've been running Wall Street. Well, Senator, I know some folks on Main Street who aren't going to think that's a good idea."

Like McCaskill, Obama also ridiculed the sudden turnaround by McCain and said he's hopeful American voters will see through the charade. Here's Obama last week:

"While John McCain isn't offering real solutions, he can't talk enough about how greedy Wall Street is and how he's going to take on the old boys' network in Washington. At this rate, by the end of the week, John McCain and Phil Gramm they're going to be talking about how they're gong to grab those seven lobbyist [in the McCain campaign] and plan to storm the Treasury Department with torches and pitchforks.

"Come on! This whole pretense that somehow he's going to take on these folks when he hasn't taken them on in 26 years because it's election time, doesn't make much sense."

And we'll let Claire McCaskill have the last word on the latest round of Republican hypocrisy.

"Do you think we are dumb? You can't transform overnight from a big bad deregulator to I am now the cop on the beat; I'll take care of Wall Street. It is not honest. Be principled," she demanded of her colleagues across the aisle. "If you are a deregulator and you want to live with these consequences, you want to say to the American people: Hey, when we deregulate, this is the risk. This is the risk we are taking with your money."

"If the law is on the books and this administration is not enforcing it, they need to explain to the American public why the taxpayers are now on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars because these guys didn't think it was important to enforce the rules against their friends."

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Comments

[JulieKay]

A man starts, next Claire, next Hillary

Need to listen to the passionate and "Give them hell" Claire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4u3rWNLYmA

[hardesty]

We here in the Kansas City area are well aware of Claire! Even though I am on the Kansas side and she is Missouri, I have watched her career from county attorney to senator. She was as tough on crooked politicians as she was on violent offenders. Between Claire and Debbie Wasserman Shulz of Florida, the Dems have their own pit bulls with lipstick.

[demfriend]

Hey Bob! Where has Claire been a hiding ll this time? What finally got her so pissed off? I do believe she started this I and I am liking the anger we have not seen from neither Reid nor Pelosi. I would love to take the Congress blocking Republicans and the administration full of crooked business people that are scattered throughout it all to task but... let us talk about those Democrats who have lied to us also.Those elected and were going to take on the administration. I realize what many do not that there are some excellent Democrat Congress men and women but they have been held in check and quiet by the two "leaders" I know also that it takes a lot of people to override vetos from Bush and with the current count it would take some Republicans to cross over and be counted. The GOP has paralized the Congress many times blocking wonderful things and Reid and Pelosi have not let the people who have a great deal of intelligence to make a whole lost of noise about it. Congress has low marks and the people of this nation should have seen fro the past few years how things have gone on but for the "leaders" they have not. The people in charge must change to see the changes happen all arround. Then we need to have the republicans pointed out where they represent what they did to block things.

[KNadine]

Sen. Clair McCaskill has REALLY been impressive this election cycle. I think we'll be seeing a lot from her. Now -that's a woman I can get behind.

[Dan1967]

McCain and Palin have no plan for the economy, and no plan to end the war in Iraq. McCain and Palin have flip flopped on the issues more then a Sunday morning pancake. I don't trust McCain and Palin.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will give a tax break to every tax payer who makes less then 250,000 per year. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will protect the rights of American workers, and work hard to keep jobs here in our own country.

Iraq has a 75 billion dollar surplus while our country has record setting budget and trade deficits.

McCain is for NAFTA, and Obama is against NAFTA. NAFTA does not work because it allows companies to move over-seas to get cheap labor without any regulation.

McCain and Palin are the same as Bush and Cheney. I don't want 4 more years of Bush and Cheney.

VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA AND LETS GET A DEMOCRAT WIN IN NOVEMBER!

[JXB]

The media sure pressured Obama to acknowledge that his prior opposition to the "surge" was a mistake. Let's see if the media pressures McCain to acknowledge that his prior suppprt for financial market deregulation, including Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, was a mistake.

[peterg76]

The Republicans are hypocrites. You're just noticing this now?

[zedthewizard]

i guess i'm most disturbed by the unknowingness of it all -- financial collapse -- a mushroom cloud if you will. we can't value it, they say. there's evidence, there's been some before.

700 billion dollars spent to increase demand would sure go aways, especially if done "progressively". if it all collapses, the gov't can buy the property on the cheap anyway. we don't know if this will work. the alternative is worse, we are lead to believe. you have to get sicker to get better. pain medication masks, it doesn't heal.

isn't it time to cut our losses and keep the "money", as if we had it. this administration has lied about mushroom clouds before to get a blank check from congress. it can't happen here some may say, but it sure as heck looks like it's happening again. this is the trouble in having a gov't that you can't trust. so, if there is a collapse, blame bush and the republicans. if i could trust them, then the bailout would've been done already. no doubt, others got us here now, but it's the lack of trust that makes me say no bailout.

[Danigirl65]

Now THAT is some straight talk from Claire. YOU GO GIRL!!

[PlantGod72]

I LOVE Claire! I look forward to seeing and hearing her perspective each time she's interviewed.

She's a woman who brings incredible strength, integrity, intelligence AND relatability to politics.......McCaskill's the ANTI-PALIN!!!

[trinidadgirl]

I like Sen Claire Mc Caskill a lot. She really lets it fly and is always on point. Great woman.
The Democrats sure have some good women in their fold.

[curledup]

I think that after all the celebrity talk bandied about, I'm going to come out of this election completely in love with Claire McCaskill. She has and obvious handle on so many complex issues and an enviable aptitude for breaking them down into digestible language - and exposing spin like batting away a fly. She's my new hero.

[apoyo]

Transformers not reformers. Like chameleons they don't want you to see what is really there.

[marthlois]

You go Claire! I swear, I think she'll be the first woman POTUS!