At this very instant, many of those in our Senate are in danger of being led off the plank by outgoing Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd. With cloture passing, Senator Dodd now has one final chance to present a manager's amendment to make a weak bill stronger (or possibly even weaker.)
Once again, this financial "reform" process has thankfully brought into the light of day that we have politicians who are brazen in their willingness to aid the same fraudsters who have brought a great nation to its knees. But as this week's primaries have clearly shown, there is no hesitation by the voters in throwing out the Establishment that got us into this mess and apparently has no plans to help us get out.
Thankfully, once forced to vote, politicians can no longer merely pretend to working for the People as they do the bidding of the Banksters. So once you look beyond all of the well-documented behind-the-scenes work by Dodd to weaken financial reform, we also have his on-the-record votes on a few of the meaningful attempts at real reform:
And just so you don't think he can't say yes to anything...
Now is the time to contact Senator Dodd and let him and his staff know that you demand real financial reform. Though the Senator is leaving office voluntarily, chances are that your Senator would like to stay. So if you are so inclined, ask them to exert their influence on the Chairman as well.
Ask them if they stand with Chris Dodd, who vacates his office with our nation in tatters largely due to the same banking system run amok that has plied him with campaign dollars, in danger of leaving this as his legacy:
Chris Dodd can still do what is right and give our country real reform. But since he is leaving the Senate for what are sure to be greener pastures, there is very little incentive for him to work for the People other than in the hopes of saving his legacy. However, we have a right to be represented in our Government and this is the time for your representative to hear the will of the People.
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I trust Dodd before I trust all the commentators. These laws and regulations are very complex and whether we like it or not, many institutions are too big too fail. If they fail, they land on us. We attack the most experience and are trading them in for the unqualified and inexperienced who hate government. Right, they'll fix our problems.
There is an unrealistic expectation that our Congress and Federal government can out distance Wall Street and the financial institutions. Every institution can't be our enemy. If we are for the people, we have to be for the government and we have to push to enable it to work.
We were played by Paulson and company. I for one have had enough.
THe BRitish popel just fired nearly a hundred of these smucks and the US can and should show the winter of their discontent too ! Let's face it foplks, politicians, with rare exceptions, are a creed and breed of $ grabbing, lobbying sucking, forked tongued morons !
fanta.
1.) Term limits for Representatives and Senators.
2.) Specific, limited time frames (3 months or so) for campaigning, strictly enforced (toss non compliers off the ballot). This limits the need for and impact of large scale donations.
3.) At-cost advertising on all open broadcast channels and radios, open to all political parties with over 5% of the vote in the previous election.
4.) All advertising cost for political ads by private organizations and citizens will be counted as political donations. Those that exceed $100,000 from a single source (I said source, not company) are taxed at 125%. Tax paid by the money source.
5.) All lobbying favors and donations are must be enumerated and counted as income on a Representative/Senators taxes.
6.) All lobbying dollars exceeding $400,000 per quarter from a single source are also taxed at 125% (tax paid by the money source).
Now, let's do this and see what type of reasonable reform we can achieve on a lot of issues afterward.
Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day,
As they go lumbering across the sky,
Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high,
Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray.
They scare the singing birds of earth away
As, greed-impelled, they circle threateningly,
Watching the toilers with malignant eye,
From their exclusive haven--birds of prey.
They swoop down for the spoil in certain might,
And fasten in our bleeding flesh their claws.
They beat us to surrender weak with fright,
And tugging and tearing without let or pause,
They flap their hideous wings in grim delight,
And stuff our gory hearts into their maws.
--Claude McKay
Keith Olbermann has expressed no such "wish" that I'm aware of; please cite any such occasion.
Mr. Olbermann's wishes, either way, aren't going to change the demographic realities: white people will very shortly be a minority in virtually all Congressional electoral districts, and already are in a few.
why would that worry you?
surely your rights under the Constitution are every bit as much guaranteed, and will be just as zealously and effectively enforced, as the rights of the past non-white minorities have previously been by the nearly-disappeared white majority, right?
you are clearly hung up on "see[ing] all mexican usa and maybe half of them gay" — that's sad for you, that you can only see color and ethnicity wherever you look [instead of seeing fellow humans] and that you worry about other peoples' sexuality.
but the good news is that your kids, or at least your grandkids, are almost certainly completely comfortable with a multicultural society.
and they will also be completely comfortable when sexual orientation is banned at the federal level from being an acceptable ground for discrimination in employment, marriage, or anything else.
so at least you can know that future generations won't have to suffer from the same burden of moral astigmatism that you are plagued with.
It's the passivity and laziness of the electorate that has created this problem.
If you bought Dodd's book about his father, 'Letters from Nuremberg," now is a good time to send it back to him. You can do this for $2.25, via media mail. You may not include a letter, but a book that has been damaged or defaced is not excluded from media mail:
448 Russell Building, Washington D.C. 20510
or
30 Lewis St Suite 101, Hartford, CT 06103
Chris Dodd has spent much of his career trying to rehabilitate his father's ruined reputation. Senator Thomas Dodd was censured by the Senate for converting campaign funds to his own use and subsequently lost re-election.
What the current Senator Dodd is doing is much worse--essentially converting public and private moneys for corporate use. He is subverting our democracy in favor of corporations, and in favor of the cushy board positions he expects to assume once he leaves office.
Let Chris Dodd know that his own reputation cannot be salvaged. Shame him.
I'm seeing a hand-inscribed message on his book's dedication page: "Dear Senator Dodd, please accept this copy of your book from another outraged American who will — if you do indeed end your term of office as the shameless and unprincipled shill for the finance industry that your current actions indicate — make it my personal mission to ensure that your name is known to my children and grandchildren as a watchword for the culture of corruption that has indelibly stained the beginning of the 21st century."
or something along those lines...
"And also that the apples never falls far from the tree."