Congress Begins the Final Push on Financial Regulation, Truthout, May 31, 2010, by David Lightman and Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy Newspapers, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Washington – The fate of the biggest overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory system in generations now rests with a small group of Capitol Hill lawmakers who are known for their ability to compromise.

In early June, negotiators from the Senate and the House of Representatives are expected to begin work on merging two competing but similar visions for revamping the way the government regulates banks and financial markets.

The Senate passed its version of the legislation on May 20; the House approved its bill last December.

“This is one of the rare occasions when the two bills are really very close to each other. There’s not a great deal of difference,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

Even if they’re in the ballpark on the big issues, the two bills have some significant differences.

For example, while both chambers favor the creation of an equivalent of the Consumer Product Safety Commission for consumer credit products such as mortgages, student loans and credit cards, they’d go about it differently.

The House would create a new, standalone agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency; the Senate envisions a Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection within the Federal Reserve.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hopes to weaken the bill during the negotiations, arguing that the new consumer panel’s leader would have powers beyond those of other government agency heads.

“I don’t know that I’m going to persuade people that my approach to consumer protection is the right way, but we should have a debate about having this much power concentrated in one individual,” said David Hirschmann, senior vice president at the Chamber.

Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr, an intellectual author of the consumer panel, countered that there are numerous checks built into the creation of the new independent agency. It’ll have public rulemaking, must conduct cost-benefit analyses on measures it proposes, and the agency head would serve at the pleasure of the president and require Senate confirmation.

“We’re in fundamental disagreement with the Chamber on this point,” Barr said.

Also contentious is whether auto dealers should be subjected to the consumer panel’s rules. Consumer advocates argue that some auto dealers make more money from lending than they do from selling cars.

“The whole point of this agency is to make sure that lenders have to play by better rules and be fairer,” said Travis Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America.

Pointing to support from the Pentagon, which thinks that auto lenders have preyed on servicemen and servicewomen, Plunkett added that resolving the dealer exemption “is going to be all about raw political power.”

House and Senate lawmakers agree with the auto dealers, who argue that they didn’t cause the financial crisis and aren’t financial institutions. The House bill exempted car dealers; the Senate bill didn’t, but a majority of senators have voiced support for the exemption.

Another battle will be over complex financial instruments called derivatives, which helped cause the near meltdown of financial markets in 2008. The Senate bill would force banks to spin off their derivatives businesses, but the Obama administration and House lawmakers think that goes too far and could prove disruptive.

The Senate language came out of the Agriculture Committee, where Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln, the chairman, faced a primary challenge and wanted to show voters she was tough on Wall Street. Lincoln now faces a June 8 runoff, a day after the Senate returns from its Memorial Day recess — freeing her, and Democrats, from having to keep up the appeal to Arkansas liberals.

Congressional leaders, with the help of the White House, have chosen a bipartisan team of negotiators, called conferees, who’re likely to find common ground on these issues quickly.

…SNIP…

Among the reasons for the unusually conciliatory mood surrounding the talks:

_ Politics: “If I were a Republican, I’d be hard pressed to vote against financial regulation,” said Burdett Loomis, professor of political science at the University of Kansas, especially less than six months before congressional elections. Politicians must show they can get tough with Wall Street, erasing voters’ memories of the unpopular 2008 bailouts of troubled financial firms.

_ Bipartisanship: Dodd and Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top committee Republican, made sure during this month’s debate that the two parties alternated offering amendments. As a result, some major GOP changes were accepted, such as Florida Sen. George LeMieux’s plan to instruct government agencies to stop relying solely on credit ratings when measuring creditworthiness.

_ The Players: Dodd and Frank will lead the committee, and both have a long history of working with Republicans on major legislation. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., will participate, even though it’s unusual for a junior member of the Senate to be included in such talks. Corker was involved earlier this year in compromise efforts, complaining later that his views were largely ignored.

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Krugman: Corporate America really, truly hates Obama, Daily Kos, May 23, 2010, by blackwaterdog, quoted verbatim:

Some day more people will understand who’s the real enemy. I don’t know when exactly it’ll happen – and by then it might be too late – but it will happen. And we’re all going to ask ourselves, how could we let it happen.

1. Paul Krugman:

So here’s how it is: They’re as mad as hell, and they’re not going to take this anymore. Am I talking about the Tea Partiers? No, I’m talking about the corporations.

Much reporting on opposition to the Obama administration portrays it as a sort of populist uprising. Yet the antics of the socialism-and-death-panels crowd are only part of the story of anti-Obamaism, and arguably the less important part. If you really want to know what’s going on, watch the corporations.

///

…Corporate America, however, really, truly hates the current administration. Wall Street, for example, is in “a state of bitter, seething, hysterical fury” toward the president, writes John Heilemann of New York magazine. What’s going on?

One answer is taxes — not so much on corporations themselves as on the people who run them. The Obama administration plans to raise tax rates on upper brackets back to Clinton-era levels. Furthermore, health reform will in part be paid for with surtaxes on high-income individuals. All this will amount to a significant financial hit to C.E.O.’s, investment bankers and other masters of the universe.

/// snip

So what President Obama and his party now face isn’t just, or even mainly, an opposition grounded in right-wing populism. For grass-roots anger is being channeled and exploited by corporate interests, which will be the big winners if the G.O.P. does well in November.

If this sounds familiar, it should: it’s the same formula the right has been using for a generation. Use identity politics to whip up the base; then, when the election is over, give priority to the concerns of your corporate donors. Run as the candidate of “real Americans,” not those soft-on-terror East coast liberals; then, once you’ve won, declare that you have a mandate to privatize Social Security. It comes as no surprise to learn that American Crossroads, a new organization whose goal is to deploy large amounts of corporate cash on behalf of Republican candidates, is the brainchild of none other than Karl Rove.

//// snip

So where does that leave the president and his party? Mr. Obama wanted to transcend partisanship. Instead, however, he finds himself very much in the position Franklin Roosevelt described in a famous 1936 speech, struggling with “the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.”

2. John Heilemann, in an amazing, huge New York Magazine feature:

Obama Is From Mars, Wall Street Is From Venus

….In May 20, the Senate passed its bill to reregulate Wall Street by a vote of 59-39, complete with a (watery) version of the Volcker Rule. The story of the legislation’s passage can be told in a number of ways: a tale of conflict or compromise, triumph or capitulation. But on any reading, that story is only the climactic chapter in a larger narrative: how the masters of the money game fell out of love with—and into a state of bitter, seething, hysterical fury toward—Obama.

//// snip

…One night not long ago, over dinner with ten executives in the finance industry, I heard the president described as “hostile to business,” “anti-wealth,” and “anti-capitalism”; as a “redistributionist,” a “vilifier,” and a “thug.” A few days later, I recounted this experience to the same Wall Street CEO who’d called the Volcker Rule a testicular blow, and mentioned I’d been told that one of the most prominent megabank chiefs, who once boasted to friends of voting for Obama, now refers to him privately as a “Chicago mob guy.”

/// snip

The issue that most sorely tested Obama’s restraint was that of Wall Street bonuses. Emanuel and Axelrod had reams of data showing that this was by far the hottest of populist hot buttons—and one that could inflict collateral damage on the White House. One day in the winter of 2009, Emanuel was meeting with a senior Goldman executive and offered some Rahmian advice. “You don’t f*cking get it!” he said. “You’re making $600,000 a year and you think you’re a fucking saint—because you were making $50 million before. But as far as the guy across the street thinks, you’re still a f*cking pig! Reduce it to zero and he’ll love you!”

/// snip

Though the Senate bill will still need to be reconciled with the House measure, it’s all but impossible to imagine that what emerges will be regarded as moderate by Wall Street. At Goldman and elsewhere, the belief is strong that the case against Wall Street’s most storied firm was politically motivated; lately, Blankfein has taken to trashing Obama to his friends in unusually brutal personal terms. Dimon—who is fond of declaring, “I’m a patriot!” in meetings with White House officials—recently described himself publicly as “a wavering Democrat.”

And even those less bruised than them have found the experience traumatizing. “They’re not accustomed to being engaged in politics this way,” says a private-equity investor. “Their skin isn’t toughened. They actually take [the attacks by Obama] personally. This is a profession with a lot of smart people, but who aren’t necessarily terribly introspective. They think they actually deserve to make all this money. So any attack on their livelihood is, ahem, unpleasant.”

/// snip

3. The New York Times, David Leonhardt:

A Progressive Agenda to Remake Washington

With the Senate’s passage of financial regulation, Congress and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition. Like the Reagan Revolution or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the new progressive period has the makings of a generational shift in how Washington operates.

//// snip

….Alan Brinkley, a historian of the Depression, added: “This is not the New Deal, but it’s a significant series of achievements. And given the difficulty of getting anything done under the gridlock of Congress, it’s pretty surprising.”

/// snip

Will this new progressive project succeed? There are any number of uncertainties: whether enough charter schools will succeed, whether the new health insurance markets will function well, whether the Fed will learn to become an effective regulator of Wall Street.

Some of those questions won’t be resolved for years. But one issue should become clear much sooner. Mr. Reagan, Mr. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt cemented their changes by retaining enough allies in Congress and serving more than four years in the White House. Mr. Obama has yet to do so.

*
Wake up, people. Wake up.

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: Apparently the whole business community is in lockstep against Obama, and I DO mean almost without exception. What a shame that institutions like the Chamber of Congress are now pure right wing institutions dedicated to bringing Obama down. Also read and watch Massey Energy & Don Blankenship: Million-dollar Tea Party sponsors, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change, derisively refers to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and others as “greeniacs”, and calls them all crazy. Watch the speech, you’ll see. In his mind, “the greeniacs are taking over the world.”

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship’s highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees’ and neighbors’ health and safety.

Here’s something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year’s Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the “Friends of America Rally.” Here’s Massey’s pitch. Note how he makes it sound like he isn’t one of the corporate enemies of America.

The Friends of America Rally featured such notables as Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent, and Hank Williams, Jr., and was graced by Blankenship himself going off on a diatribe that seemed strange at the time, but has come to be commonplace these days. It concerned President Obama, Democrats, and any one who doesn’t salute God, coal, and apple pie. Oh, and we’re also going to ‘steal their jobs,’ if Hannity is to be believed.

Blankenship and Massey Energy spend millions to defend unsafe workplaces….

Finding evidence of a right wing business conspiracy to take down Obama isn’t hard to do. Even back in the days of the campaign people as high up as Bill Clinton were saying the right wing was essentially in a conspiracy against Obama. Do we think the right wing has grown kinder and gentler???

It’s time to rally in support of our President. He has tried very hard to work with the GOP in Congress and in the business community and all they have done is stab him in the back every way they can. It’s time to support our President, who has made a remarkable program of progressive reform an actual achievement. We “purists” have too much concentrated on the compromises and the failures to fully institute purely progressive legislation. It’s time to stop and realize what Obama is up against and get behind him in support of what is possible to do in the current climate of right wing hatred and lockstep opposition. I strongly feel that if we don’t support the President now, we’re really going to be sorry.

It’s just possible here, if you want at the whole process of warfare going on between the right and the left, or conservatives and liberals, in terms of good and evil, that MONEY is the root of all the evil. And sex and power flow from the money. That how it seems to be in Kapitalist America. Obama is getting in the way of coporate America’s and rich people’s profits.

Let’s tell Barack Obama “good job”, we know you’ve done what is possible and then some. Send an email to the White House and show your support. ~ Paul Evans

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Froma Harrop | Superb Tuesday: The Right People Won, Truthout, May 19, 2010, by Froma Harrop, quoted verbatim:

Guess Mitch McConnell’s charm wasn’t enough. The Senate minority leader’s anointed man lost the Kentucky Republican Senate primary to Rand Paul, son of tea party toastmaster Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

The Tuesday races went well for Democrats, less well for Republicans and still less well for McConnell. The GOP leader, who confidently keeps telling us “what the American people want,” didn’t even know what fellow Republicans wanted in his own state.

A predicted Republican wave failed to materialize in late Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s district in southwestern Pennsylvania. This is one of those blue-collar districts that, according to much punditry, is ripe for Republican plunder in the November midterms. There, voters chose to replace Murtha with a former Murtha aide, Mark Critz. Furthermore, Critz won by a wide margin over Republican businessman Tim Burns. (So much for election eve polls showing the two candidates virtually tied.)

Americans of many political stripes were gratified by Rep. Joe Sestak’s knockout of Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary. Folks at the State Department, who’ve long suffered Specter’s famously bad manners during his visits to U.S. embassies, are positively giddy.

Party activists are of course delighted to rid themselves of the opportunistic Specter. The five-term senator became a Democrat as polls showed him trailing Rep. Pat Toomey in the state’s Republican primary race.

The one person not celebrating Sestak’s win is Toomey, who once headed the “fiscally conservative” Club for Growth.” Sestak is the more formidable candidate. A former admiral who saw action in Afghanistan, he can remind patriotic voters that Americans have borne far heavier burdens than paying their taxes.

In Arkansas, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln failed to secure more than half the vote in a three-person primary race and so must face state Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in a runoff. Angry at Lincoln’s cozy corporate ties, unions and liberals in Arkansas strongly backed Halter.

So what does it all mean? Is anti-incumbent fever running wild? There may be some of that. But more than new faces, the electorate is demanding new ideas.

Note that Rand Paul’s 11-term congressman father was his biggest draw as he campaigned in Kentucky — and for congressional term limits. One does not have to be a tea partier to appreciate the Pauls for their original thinking. Some of their ideas may be off the wall, but some of them are very much not. And they fearlessly speak against conventional wisdom and moneyed interests.

How refreshing to hear the younger Paul argue for ending farm subsidies. Another promise was to close the U.S. Department of Education and send the money to states to spend as they see fit.

Rand’s combo platter of proposals was not entirely appealing. And his tireless flattery of the tea party ruined many an appetite. The result was such loopy vows as requiring that every section of every new law explain which part of the Constitution lets Congress do that. If everyone agreed on what the Constitution says, there would be no need for a Supreme Court — which, by the way, the Constitution established (Article III).

I don’t understand all this fuss about incumbents. Some politicians serve for a long time because the voters think they’re doing a good job. Getting rid of one’s rep because Congress passed something you didn’t like makes sense only if the rep voted the wrong way.

Super Tuesday did wound the myth that incumbents are invincible. That notion has discouraged many fine people from running for office – thus turning the belief in the power of incumbency into a self-fulfilling prophecy. That accomplishment alone made for a superb Tuesday.

Copyright 2010 The Providence Journal Co. Distributed by Creators.com

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The ‘Mad-As-Hell’ Party Scores as the Anxious Class Stews, RobertReich.org, May 18, 2010, by Robert Reich, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Kentucky Tea Party hero Rand Paul scores a knockout victory over Republican Trey Grayson. Before that, Utah Senator Robert Bennett loses to a Tea Party-fueled Republican insurgent. Is the lesson here the rise once again of the Republican right?

Not so fast. Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln is also in a tough fight – threatened from the left by Lt. Governor Bill Halter. In Pennsylvania, newly-minted Democrat Arlen Specter lost the primary race to Joe Sestak. Meanwhile, thirteen-term Democratic representative Paul Kanjorski is challenged by 36-year-old Corey O’Brien – who’s waged a spirited campaign from his RV, accusing Kanjorski of being too tied to Wall Street.

Okay, so maybe all this signals increasing strength on both political extremes?

Not really. To the extent these races represent anything at all (and it’s easy to read too much into early races), it’s a swing against the establishment.

Kentucky’s Trey Grayson was handpicked by Mitch McConnell, who campaigned vigorously for him, as did Dick Cheney. The President and other Democratic notables came to the aid of Blanche Lincoln’s and Arlen Specter.

It’s the economy, stupid. American politics is turning anti-establishment because so many Americans feel screwed by the economy and they blame the establishment. If there’s a trend here, it’s not left-wing Democrats versus right-wing Republicans. It’s the “Mad-As-Hell” Party against both.

Unemployment continues to haunt the middle class – the anxious class of America. There are still more than five jobless workers for every job opening.

But it’s also low wages. The much-vaulted first quarter of this year produced zilch in terms of wage growth. Private-sector hourly earnings rose at a .4 annual rate while prices climbed at about a 1 percent – leaving most workers with less purchasing power than they had when the quarter began. The only reason weekly earnings showed any growth at all is because some workers put in more hours.

What does all this portend for November’s midterm election? Unless the economy moves into high gear, and unless America’s anxious class feels substantially better, incumbents are in trouble.

But the probability of the economy moving into high gear between now and then is not great. Consider that almost eighty percent of the increase in GDP in the first quarter was due to the growth of consumer spending. Where did consumers get the money if their real hourly wage dropped? From drawing down their savings. Obviously, they can’t continue to do this. Had consumers not spent their savings, the GDP would hardly have grown at all

In fact, if you exclude temporary boosts like the government stimulus and the restocking of company inventories, the U.S. economy would not have grown in the first quarter. As these temporary boosts fade later this year, consumer spending is the only thing that will keep the economy going. But consumers won’t be able to spend what they don’t have.

Some economic cheerleaders predict employers will increase wages as their profits grow. That’s nonsense. With five jobless workers for every job opening, employers are under no pressure to raise wages.

Other cheerleaders say the stock market’s rise will boost consumer spending and confidence. That’s nonsense, too. How many consumers feel richer because the Dow is up from what it was at the start of the year? They may see a bit of a rise in their 401(k)s, but their biggest asset is their homes, and housing prices are going nowhere. One out of four Americans with a mortgages now owes more than their house is worth.

The real lesson from today’s political races is the economy still stinks for most people. And the real lesson from the economy’s first quarter is the recovery is so weak that the anxious class is likely to remain anxious through November. Incumbents beware.

See Rand Paul’s meltdown on TRMS, Daily Kos, May 19, 2010, by snowman3, excerpt quoted verbatim:

I’m not sure if someone else has diaried this yet (I didn’t see a diary on the list), but tonight on The Rachel Maddow Show, newly minted Kentucky Rebublican senatorial candidate Rand Paul refused to say whether or not he would have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He repeatedly said he was not a racist and said he abhorred institutional racism (I wonder if this is a dog whistle to the Tea Party about affirmative action) but he said he could only support 9 of the 10 Titles of the Civil Rights Act, saying he could not support the Title referring to private institutions. Presumably he was talking about Title VII which “prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin”.

Rachel repeatedly pressed Paul on the issue, in fact the entire interview was about this issue, but Paul refused to budge. He said he would have tried to change that Title if he had to vote on the Civil Rights Act. Rachel correctly pointed out that without government enforcing non-discrimination at private businesses, businesses could refuse to serve people based on their race or sexual orientation or on any other basis the business decided. Paul was unmoved and called the issue a red herring, while saying he was personally against discrimination and institutional racism. Rachel pointed to the concrete example of Walgreens refusing to serve blacks at lunch counters back in the 60s, yet Paul stuck to his guns.

Commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: I am somewhat troubled by Tea Partiers’ ubiquitous claims that they are not racist juxtaposed with statements by them which ARE racist. Not only do these people use the “N” word with no compunction, they are belligerent towards blacks and also towards the sub-species of human scum know as — liberals. That’s right, for Tea Partiers, liberals are the new blacks… They don’t like us, they are certain God doesn’t like us, and they vigorously shun us in public. To tell the truth, I don’t feel completely safe when I park my car, which has a few prominent liberal bumper stickers, in a public lot. I know that the public always HAS been “a great beast” and that you are kidding yourself if you think you are safe “out there” but my two housemates were robbed at gunpoint last week at a gas station.

I don’t quite get why society has to be this way. I know that the poor situation of our economy is just making it worse, too. People are really hurting, and if you venture in to the old parts of our major cities, you’ll see what economic devastation looks like. What is absolutely appalling to me is a conclusion I have reached intuitively about our government and jobs and the economic plight of the poor and the middle class. I don’t think they care beyond propping up the economy just a little – just enough so that they barely get re-elected. I don’t think they care about someone hurting, losing their house, living on the streets, or wasting their life’s savings just to get by. Our government, I fully believe, is quite capable of pouring resources into the economy and fixing it so regular people can once again get decent jobs. But they are not doing this, are they? Our leaders are so insulated from what it is like to be poor right now, that I really don’t think it resonates with them at all. I always believed in the Democratic Party, and I know some few Democrats ARE caring. But mainly they’re politicians. And they do NOT care about the little guy. I wish I hadn’t discovered that, but there it is. Politicians largely don’t “get it” and they basically don’t care. Somebody convince me otherwise – I dare you.

See Why The President’s Next Big Thing Should Be Jobs, RobertReich.org, March 25, 2010, by Robert Reich.

Highly Recommended: 13 Bankers: The American Oligarchs And The Systemically Dangerous Institutions (SDIs) They Rule, The Huffington Post, April 27, 2010, by William K. Black (who is the nation’s premier authority on banking fraud), excerpt quoted verbatim:

We know that Simon Johnson and James Kwak have hit a nerve because Larry Summers, the administration’s principal economic adviser and the man that carries water for what the authors rightly call the financial “oligarchs” — has been forced into an open defense of the oligarchs’ rule. Summers has kept a low profile and protected the oligarchs from substantive reform by using his power as gatekeeper to minimize the presentation of views by those that support effective financial regulation. Summers’ ability to marginalize Paul Volcker demonstrates his power and success — and the harm he causes the nation.

The issue that has caused Summers to publicly carry water for the oligarchs is the inherent insanity of allowing systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs) to continue. The oligarchs are all SDIs. Under the administration’s own logic, if any SDI fails it creates a serious potential of causing a global financial crisis.

Check this out: Glenn Beck and Rep. Anthony Weiner: A Fight for the Gold, Politics Daily, May 19, 2010, by David Corn, excerpt quoted verbatim:

The end is near, buy gold.

That’s been right-wing talker Glenn Beck’s advice to those who listen to his syndicated radio show and watch his Fox News show. You need to “think like a German Jew in 1934, maybe 1931,” he has said — and that means loading up on the yellow, shiny stuff, so that when economies and currencies collapse, you’ll be able to buy food (or letters of transit).

Beck is free to give whatever economic advice to his fans, but he has blended his analysis with self-serving commerce, promoting a particular gold coin retailer called Goldline, which has too often ripped off customers by peddling coins at much higher prices than their true value and selling them as solid financial investments. Not coincidentally, Goldline is a major sponsor of Beck’s radio and TV shows. My Mother Jones colleague Stephanie Mencimer has written a thorough exposé of Goldline and the Beck connection, and the story has hit at a propitious moment: just as Beck has attacked a Democratic congressman who has investigated Beck and Goldline.

On Tuesday, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) released a report noting that Beck and Goldline have together used fear tactics to bilk investors. As Mencimer puts it, Beck has been “recommending a company that promotes financial security but operates in a largely unregulated no-man’s land, generating a pile of consumer complaints about misleading advertising, aggressive telemarketing, and overpriced products.” Her article details instances when Goldline reps swindled folks into buying gold coins as an investment — when there was no way such a purchase could be considered a reasonable financial move. One fellow looking to buy gold bullion from Goldline was sold $10,000 worth of 20-franc Swiss gold coins at a price of almost double what was then the current rate for gold — meaning he was deep in the hole at the get-go.

Goldline, Weiner said, “rips off consumers, uses misleading and possibly illegal sales tactics, and deliberately manipulates public fears of an impending government takeover — this is a trifecta of terrible business practices.” He declared that Beck “should be ashamed of himself” for aiding and abetting the company. Weiner noted he would introduce legislation forcing Goldline and other precious metal dealers to disclose all relevant information to its customers — such as the melt value of the coins being sold and how much the price of gold would have to increase to produce a profit for the buyer. Weiner blasted other conservative talkers — including Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley, and Mike Huckabee — for also advocating the buying of gold on programs supported by Goldline ads. Weiner has called for the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission to investigate.

Beck, naturally, didn’t take kindly to all this. He accused Weiner of being a modern-day Joe McCarthy, and he claimed that Weiner’s investigation was part of an anti-Beck conspiracy mounted by the Obama White House.

*****

Robert Reich was the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Most Successful Cabinet Members of the century. He has written eleven books, including “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages. His latest book is “Supercapitalism.” For Professor Reich’s book page for Supercaptialism at Amazon, go here. The above article is from Reich’s new blog, and can be viewed here.

Thanks to Professor Reich for permission to publish his articles on an ongoing basis.

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G.O.P. Threatens Seats Long Held by Democrats, &#169 The New York Times, April 24, 2010, by Jeff Zeleney and Adam Nougourney, excerpt quoted verbatim:

ASHLAND, Wis. — Representative David R. Obey has won 21 straight races, easily prevailing through wars and economic crises that have spanned presidencies from Nixon’s to Obama’s. Yet the discontent with Washington surging through politics is now threatening not only his seat but also Democratic control of Congress.

Mr. Obey is one of nearly a dozen well-established House Democrats who are bracing for something they rarely face: serious competition. Their predicament is the latest sign of distress for their party and underlines why Republicans are confident of making big gains in November and perhaps even winning back the House.

The fight for the midterm elections is not confined to traditional battlegrounds, where Republicans and Democrats often swap seats every few cycles. In the Senate, Democrats are struggling to hold on to, among others, seats once held by President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Democrats are preparing to lose as many as 30 House seats — including a wave of first-term members — and Republicans have expanded their sights to places where political challenges seldom develop.

“It’s not a lifetime appointment,” said Sean Duffy, a Republican district attorney here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where he has established himself as one of the most aggressive challengers to Mr. Obey since he went to Washington in 1969. “There are changes in this country going on, and people aren’t happy.”

Mr. Obey, who leads the powerful Appropriations Committee, is one of three House Democratic chairmen who have drawn serious opposition. Representatives John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, who oversees the Budget Committee, and Ike Skelton of Missouri, who runs the Armed Services Committee, have been warned by party leaders to step up the intensity of their campaigns to help preserve the Democratic majority.

These established House Democrats find themselves in the same endangered straits as some of their newer colleagues, particularly those who were swept into office in 2008 by Mr. Obama as he scored victories in traditionally Republican states like Indiana and Virginia.

Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he would consider anything short of taking back the House a failure. Republicans say they have not recruited strong candidates in all districts, but both parties agree that Republicans are within reach of capturing the 40 additional seats needed to win control. Republicans also are likely to eat into the Democratic majority in the Senate, though their prospects of taking control remain slim.

Democratic Congressional officials — well aware that a president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections — have long been preparing for a tough year. But that Mr. Obey here in Wisconsin and other veteran lawmakers like Representative Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota suddenly find themselves in a fight reflects an increasingly sour mood toward the Democratic Party and incumbents. ….

Read the full article, here.

Commentary by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: I just spent almost an hour on YouTube looking for mainstream media OR partisan Democratic videos about election 2010. They aren’t there. There are plenty of pro Tea Party Videos, you can find pages and pages of them in the search results for example for “election 2010″. I even went so far as to search YouTube for “election 2010 pro Democrat” (as well as “DNC election 2010″ and other partisan searches) and all of THOSE results were pro Tea Party results, including the top result listed, America Rising: An Open Letter to Democrat Politicians, which I have to admit, is a slick, well produced video…. watch it if you dare!

I’m worried…. The last figures I saw were to the effect that measurements of “party voter enthusiasm” had Democrats at 30 percent enthusiastic and Republicans at 55 percent. Traditional mid-term voter turnout has historically run about 36 to 38 percent. The last time it was as high as 38 percent was 1994, when Democrats lost Congress.

In Democrats Retain Money Advantage, ABC News, April 21, 2010, by David Chalian, it is claimed that Democrats have $57.8 million cash on hand while Republicans have just $36.3 million. I see utterly no evidence of this in the rhetoric and visibility of conservative message versus liberal message on the web or television. I have utterly no evidence that Democrats are doing anything constructive, media wise, with this money. YouTube is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tea Party in terms of the visibility of search results and their positioning. And YouTube is where America goes to find news on topics they are interested in.

In election 2010 polling done by Daily Kos/Research 2000, as of March 1-4, 2010, polling was running 45% Democrat to 42% Republican. But by April 19-23, 2010, results had swung to 46% Democrat to 47% Republican. The trend over 8 polls was a consistent erosion of Democrat support, or, rather, steady Democrat support with increasing Republican support. This means that Independents and swing voters are deciding in favor of Republican candidates. Gallop has a generic ballot for Congress as of April 15th as Democrat 43% versus Republican 46%. We are losing the war about our whole “message”. RealClearPolitics has new polling results as of April 15th which show only 36.6 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the “right direction”, while 58 percent feel we are on the “wrong track” (RCP average of five polling sources). This means that the overall opinion war is being lost.

DNC, DNCC, DSCC, DCC: you guys better wake UP! Get in there and counterpunch, unless you really do have a burning desire to go down in flames in this fall’s elections. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

*****

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