Politics Plus

It’s a given that Republicans top priority is making sure millionaires get the tax cut on income over $250,000.  But since we have already beaten that issue to death, at least until the duck starts to quack, lets move to their number two priority.  They claim it’s repealing Obamacare.  However, in making that claim, they are doing what Republicans do best: lying.  Criminal banksters did not withdraw support from Democrats and spend $millions in secret contributions to put Republicans in office for nothing.  Now they want payback and Republicans will do everything within their power to gibe them what they want.  They are going after financial reform.

Big banks opposed much of the Democratic agenda these past two years in Congress, and they could find a lot to like in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Already, the GOP has a lengthy, bank-friendly to-do list.

The coming term should bring scores of oversight hearings into the implementation of new rules governing financial institutions. There will be scuffles over control of a new consumer financial protection agency. And lawmakers will debate how to restructure the quasi-governmental mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which retain a major role in the current housing crisis.

All are issues that Bank of America, Wells Fargo and large other banking institutions will pay close attention to.

"We had been disappointed with a number of legislative outcomes with the past Congress, and so we look forward to better outcomes with this Congress," said Peter Garuccio, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association in Washington.

Garuccio said banks expect a corrections bill to peel back some of the financial regulations passed into law this year. Among them would be a repeal of the so-called Durbin Amendment, which cut debit-card fees for retailers. Banks say it cost them billions.

"That’s a huge issue," Garuccio said.

Consumer groups worry that Republicans on the Financial Services Committee will rebel against almost every issue that Democrats tackled in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as the financial overhaul was called.

"We want to make sure that the industry that caused this mess doesn’t derail this comprehensive, common-sense approach to making sure this doesn’t happen again," said Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, based in Durham, N.C. "The banking industry is out there already saying this is really bad."

Most of the direct legislative action affecting banks concluded earlier this year with the Dodd-Frank Act, the broadest revamp of financial regulation since the Great Depression. Now, regulators are facing the challenge of implementing the complex legislation and working with increasingly complex and global financial markets.

Banks already have begun lobbying the administration.

"We are making our views known and especially responding to questions from federal regulators about the implications of the rules they are writing or how they could work," said Scott Silvestri, a Bank of America spokesman.

Meanwhile, House Republicans expect to hold hearings and conduct oversight into the law’s implementation, said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a member of both the financial services and oversight committees… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <McClatchy DC>

Here’s the key.  With the House under Republican control, they still lack the ability to actually do anything beyond making noise as long as Democrats stand fast.  But we have real reason for concern there.  Harry Reid needs to be replaced, because of his propensity to believe Republican lies that they negotiate in good faith, hump Republican legs for votes, whining, rolling over, and playing dead.  In the administration, Tim Geithner will be Republicans’ best ally, behind the scenes.

I’m not going to convict Democrats, before they have a chance to commit the crime, but I’d be lying, if I did not point out the potential.  Now we know what to watch and understand the need to make our voices heard.

Hamid Karzai would never have become President of Afghanistan had the Republican Bush Regime not installed him to represent the interests of his employer, Unocal.  The only thing keeping Karzai in power is the presence of US troops, but even Karzai is savvy enough to know that the Petraeus plan is failing, so he is trying to feather his corrupt nest through other means.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai said the United States must reduce the visibility and intensity of its military operations in Afghanistan.

Karzai also said in an interview Saturday with The Washington Post the U.S. should end the increased Special Operations forces night raids that aggravate Afghans and could strengthen the Taliban insurgency.

He said he wants American troops off the roads and out of Afghan homes and that the long-term presence of so many foreign soldiers would only make the war worse. U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus claims the 30,000 new troops have made substantial progress in beating back the insurgency.

"The time has come to reduce military operations," Karzai said. "The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan . . . to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <AP/Google>

When Obama campaigned to be President, he never promised to end this war.  He said he intended to escalate it.  He said that he was not against all wars, that he was against stupid wars, referring to to the Republican debacle in Iraq.  We cannot call it betrayal that he did what he said he would do.  But his analysis was mistaken.

Mr. President, when our own puppet says No, isn’t it time to recognize that this has become a stupid war and pull the plug?

Peel back the veneer on almost any Republican politician and you will discover a corrupt, dishonest, hateful hypocrite who will do virtually anything to hold on to power.  Most representative of this paradigm is Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, as this editorial from his local paper demonstrates.

George W. Bush got a lot wrong in his administration, but he certainly did figure out Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.

In his new memoir, Decision Points, the former president tells of a meeting he held in September 2006 with Mr. McConnell, then the Republican whip in the Senate. The occupation of Iraq was going horribly, American and Iraqi casualties were rising sharply, costs had mushroomed into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and Iraq was teetering on the brink of full-scale sectarian civil war. Mr. McConnell was concerned, and he gave the president his advice.

But why was he concerned? It wasn’t because of bloodshed, destruction, a hemorrhaging budget or a slide toward disaster. He was fearful that the morass in Iraq would cause the Republican Party to take a beating in the approaching mid-term elections. And what was his advice? He urged the president to “bring some troops home from Iraq” to lessen the political risks, Mr. Bush writes.

This incident, which Sen. McConnell’s office has not denied, shines brightly on the contemptible hypocrisy and obsessive partisanship that have come to mark the senator’s time in office.

At the time that Sen. McConnell was privately advising Mr. Bush to reduce troop levels in Iraq, he was elsewhere excoriating congressional Democrats who had urged the same thing. “The Democrat[ic] leadership finally agrees on something — unfortunately it’s retreat,” Sen. McConnell had said in a statement on Sept. 5, 2006, about a Democratic letter to Mr. Bush appealing for cuts in troop levels. Sen. McConnell, who publicly was a stout defender of the war and Mr. Bush’s conduct of the conflict, accused the Democrats of advocating a position that would endanger Americans and leave Iraqis at the mercy of al-Qaida.

Unless he is prepared to call a former president of his own party a liar, Mr. McConnell has a choice. He can admit thut at he did not actually believe the Iraq mission was vital to American security, regardless of what he said at the time. Or he can explain why the fortunes of the Republican Party are of greater importance than the safety of the United States. [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Courier Journal>

Normally, the earmark king of any Senate is the a member of the Majority, but  not this year.  Bought Bitch Mitch holds that title too.  I fully agree with the conclusions his local paper has reached, and I’m not tha only one who does.  Here’s Rachel:

If only there were a Democrat in the Senate to rub his bulbous nose in this every time he opens his lying mouth!  His term ends in 2012, and Democrats had better put up someone better than Blanche!