Yesterday over at DWT we looked at the dynamic between congressmen who have taken large quasi-legal bribes from the banking sector and their willingness to always support the banksters' special interests regardless of how gravely it impacts their own constituents. Yesterday's occasion was the overwhelming passage, by the House of the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009 which seeks to protect consumers from predatory and unscrupulous banksters and credit card lenders by:
· Ending unfair, arbitrary interest rate increases;
· Letting customers set hard credit limits, stops excessive "over the limit" fees;
· Ending unfair penalties for cardholders who pay on time;
· Requiring fair allocation of consumer payments;
· Protecting cardholders from due date gimmicks;
· Preventing companies from using misleading terms and damaging consumers' credit ratings;
· Protecting vulnerable consumers from high-fee subprime credit cards;
· Baring Issuing Credit Cards to Vulnerable Minors;
· Requiring Better Data Collection from Credit Card Industry;
· Swiftly Implementing the 45-Day Notice Requirement
Every Democrat but one mangy Blue Dog in bed with the credit card industry voted yes-- and so did 105 Republicans! There were only 69 Republicans voting no, a combination of the well-bribed and the sociopath extremists. Here in California, 6 members-- who always oppose regulations for their campaign donors-- voted no:
Ed Royce (CA-40- $2,506,414)
David Dreier (CA-26- $2,118,538)
Gary Miller (CA-42- $765,988)
Devin Nunes (CA-21- $499,235)
Kevin McCarthy (CA-22- $461,138)
Tom McClintock (CA-04- $353,294)
Yesterday David Dayen did an excellent preview of how the 2010 congressional cycle is shaping up in California. He points out that two on this list of sell-outs, Tom McClintock, who has emerged as the most extreme right member of the California delegation, and Dreier, who only wound up with 53% of the vote and whose district went for Obama in November.
Dreier will once again be forced to face a top rate challenge in 2010, Russ Warner, who has every intention of making sure voters from Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, and Claremont to San Dimas, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, San Marino and La Crescenta know that Dreier is strictly a representative of the special interests that have done such grievous damage to the state's economy and to the financial well-being to his own constituents. "Time and time again," Russ told us this morning after going over the vote yesterday, "David Dreier proves the interests of his corporate donors take precedent over the people he was elected to serve. Dreier's never felt the pressure of supporting a family and has lived off the taxpayer dime for nearly three decades, so its not surprising he has no idea how harmful these predatory credit card companies are."
I'd like to hear that kind of talk from every candidate making a serious attempt to help us get rid of these congressional parasites. And each one of them should run an ad like this on cable TV: