Post Wisconsin there’s reason to worry about corporate cash flowing to Mitt Romney. But I agree with Blue Texan that it’s good for the Democratic brand.
The Democratic Party’s embrace of Wall Street in the 1990s has been a disaster for the country and the party. It’s led to horrible policies such as the repeal of New Deal banking regulations — and badly diluted the brand.
Let’s go back to welcoming their hatred, please.
The only thing I’d add is that it also probably means something positive about banking reform as a policy. It’s certainly not perfect by a long shot, but if it pisses off the bankers, it can’t be totally toothless.
What on earth makes anyone think that the response of the Obama campaign or Democratic Party leaders will be to distance themselves from Wall Street? Did nobody see the bipartisan Senate fellating of Jamie Dimon, gosh, what was it, yesterday?
All available evidence is that establishment Democrats are responding by redoubling their efforts to prove that they, too, can lie prostrate before Wall Street. Anyone who thinks the Dems will disavow that cash cow is nuts.
Sometimes I think, with the corpratist wing of the Democratic Party making the party Republican-Light, we don’t even have a two party system in this country, but a 1 and a half party system. I guess that makes us one better than maybe the Canadian Province of Alberta, which has been one party rule for decades. Although this year’s election, the Progressive Conservatives(that’s what the ruling party in Alberta is called) fought off a challenge from a further-right party, the Wildrose Alliance Party, by reaching out to the Liberals and NDP. The Germans have a multiparty system, but that is because of the Mixed-Member Proportional system, which means Third Parties, if they are polling at 5%, get 5% of the seats in the legislature. Here, 5% makes a party a spoiler. For two of Germany’s Third Parties in the Bundestag, they are lucky the election is due in September of 2013, the Free Democratic Party(a Libertarian-like, pro-business, but socially liberal party) and Die Lienke(The Left, formerly the East German Communists) are polling around 5% each. Unlike most proportional systems, that is a high threshold to win, but Germany has a reason to keep fringe parties out of the Bundestag.
@2 Perhaps the fact Democrats now do their dirty work is what led Republicans to conclude they can safely go completely nuts.
Factoid: U.S. daily stock trading volume has fallen from 9.77B shares in 2009 to 6.71B shares in 2012.
(Source: InvestorPlace)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Wonder what investors think of Wall Street’s rigged game? The little people have already voted with their feet, and professional traders are following them to the exits. Seems like a long time ago that George W. Bush and the Republican Party tried to give management of Social Security to Wall Street. Let’s hope voters haven’t forgotten.
Good point Roger.
Also, one thing that the electoral system I mentioned can do, is bring parties together. In Germany, no party in recent years has had an outright majority at the Federal Level, and that is the way they want it. Although both major parties prefer their natural coalition partners(Social Democrats work with the Green Party, or in the case of the state of Baden-Wurtenburg(Stuttgart), the other way around), and the Christian Democrats prefer the Free Democrats), as a last resort, they do work together. As in the case in several state governments, and the Federal one from 2005-2009.
Plus Roger, some of the Republicans willing to work with the other party, have quit the party, quit politics, or both, in the case of former Representative Pete McCloskey(R-CA). One thing that makes me wish he had managed to win the primary in a California Congressional Seat in 2006, was something he did for Rep. Jackie Speier(D-CA, a district by number, once represented by Richard Nixon, it kept getting drawn further north, now it is the SF Peninsula) recently. He did not like how Speier, a former aide for California Representative Leo Ryan, who survived getting shot(barely) while accompanying Ryan on that fatal fact-finding mission, had not received any honor. He found away to giver her one of his Purple Hearts, saying her wounds were more serious than the bayonet wound he had in Korea.
@1,
I should have been more clear that I meant over time. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with the elected officials we’ve got for the moment.
Obama is the biggest Wall Street slut of all-time! He raised way more than McCain from Wall Street in 2008 and will probably end up with more than Romney.
The Occupiers are an extension of MoveOn.org. MoveOn is paying the leaders. MoveOn is Obama’s stealth political arm. Let’s not kid each other.
Class Warfare is all Obama has..despite the fact he is one of the 1%ers himself.
How gullible are the Obama Zombies?
And the SEIU pays for their office space at $4k a month. I wonder is that SEIU dues money? Can someone opt out of the SEIU union without repercussions?
re 8: “How gullible are the Obama Zombies?”
Probably 50 shades less gullible than the pro-lifers are about Republican politicians doing anything about abortion.
Our goals are reasonable and just. You guys want power and money and will give lip-service support to any crackpot that comes down the pike as long as they will vote Republican.
Gee, one post by someone leaning Democratic @ # 6 goes out of their way to praise a Republican who was rational, moral, and willing to reach across the aisle to honor those from the opposing party.
Followed quickly therafter by Smiling @ 8 and Puddy @ 9 muttering utter nonsense and calling the President a slut to Wall Street, only a day or to after Alinsky threw in $10M to Romney and promised as much more as he needed. (With a net worth of $250B, $10M is little more than “ernest money” on that promise of more money to come).
Just more evidence that the trolls here don’t have any character or morals, they just like to snort whatever they think might undermine the President. Which reminds me of some good advice I recieved years ago: “Never get into a pissing match with a skunk”.
Interesting calculation:
A rough back-of-envelope calculation shows that Mitt Romney earned $20,000 for each job lost due to Bain Capital’s vulture capitalism.
Romney’s Bain Capital Record
Speaking of Wisconsin:
A Thank You Letter to the Left
http://www.thedailypage.com/fo.....%23p690738
@ 11
The One is doing a pretty fair job of undermining himself, when the Clintons take time away from doing it for him.
Just last year he said he didn’t have the ability to override Congress and install DREAM-like changes.
Obama on DREAM Act: Can’t “just change the laws unilaterally” Transcript
http://blogs.suntimes.com/swee.....ust_c.html
” But the fact of the matter is there are laws on the books that I have to enforce. And I think there’s been a great disservice done to the cause of getting the DREAM Act passed and getting comprehensive immigration passed by perpetrating the notion that somehow, by myself, I can go and do these things. It’s just not true.”
re 14: Well, he could drum up some war fever about Iran, declare war, and pretty much do whatever the hell he wants.
Bush II provided the blueprint for that gambit.
Gee, remember the right-wing press (i.e., Fox News) getting all upset because they didn’t think Democrats were sufficiently awed by George W. Bush’s presidential stature to avoid agreeing with him pin public?
Just to show you how times have changed, especially when dealing with the right-wing press and the current President.
A correspondent for The Daily Caller, a right-wing website, loudly interrupted the President’s speech today several times. Veteran White House correspondent Diane Sawyer described the correspondent as a “heckler”. Former George W. Bush spokesman said he should have his White House press credentials pulled, as no correspondent in the past has been so presumptious as to interrupt a Presidential speech. Tucker Carlson, co-owner of the Daily Caller, tried to back-pedel and claim the correspondent was just trying to ask questions like Sam Donaldson does, but Sam Donaldson quickly pointed out that he never interrupted a speech to do so.
Just for the record, for all you right-wing trolls. It’s not Obama. It’s MR. PRESIDENT to you, sir. The White House Press Pass is a priviledge, not a right.
Link for previous news:
Right-Wing Reporter Tries to Heckle Obama During Speech
Quite simply, we are heading into the silly season again, just as we did in the summer of 2009 when right-wing stooges tried to disrupt serious discussions of health-care issues and drown out debate with middle-school tactics.
Yesterday, we get the Romney bus circling an Obama rally and blaring it’s horn to drown out speakers.
Today, we have a reporter for a right-wing website trying to heckle the President during a serious speach over immigration priorities.
I’m reminded of the time during the health-care debate when in Bellevue doctors and nurses in scrubs dmonstrated on one corner near the hospital with signs supporting the reforms, but Tim-Eyman look-alikes demonstrated on an opposite corner with teenage girls dressed in costume-store nurse’s white outfits and signs claiming that doctors and nurses were uniformly opposed to health care reform. It was so false to be laughable, but they made every attempt to drown out the real debate.
@ 19
It wasn’t heckling. It was an effort to get Obama to answer a question.
At Obama’s last press conference, he took three, count ’em, three questions.
He’s unavailable to the press except for those fawning blow-job interviews he gives.
Someone asked a question. All those reporters in attendance today, and it was the one time Obama wasn’t reading a script. Guy deserves an accolade, not a ‘heckler’ tag.
“It wasn’t heckling. It was an effort to get Obama to answer a question.”
Asswipe. It was a right-wing blogger interrupting our president’s remarks. How like a fascist asshole to make excuses for such a disrespectful act. What will you excuse next, Bob, throwing bottles?
Why dont you tell YLBigot that. He refuses to call obama the president…im sure you can track down the post, its only a few days old.
rhp@11, another thing I might have mentioned before, was California’s investment in intercity rail(although I admit many are having second thoughts on HSR), and who started it. One example of it was the restoration of service to the Central Valley. When Amtrak started in 1971, the Central Valley was left without service. The State of California funded the San Juaquins service, with the first train running in March 1974, and now 12 trains a day(6 round trips), between Bakersfield and Oakland(4 round trips) and Sacramento(2 Round Trips). I got curious who was Governor when that happened, and it was the last year Reagan was Governor. One mistake Reagan did with it, was terminating it at Bakersfield. Although it’s Amtrak’s 5th busiest route, could be even better if the 12 trains ran through to Los Angeles Union Station, maybe even San Diego. Union Pacific and BNSF won’t allow the trains over Tehachapi Pass, as it is a busy single-tracked corridor, no room to add another track in some areas, and a loop, not exactly great for crossing the pass in a timely manner. One part of the controversial CHSRA revised plan, is a new crossing of the Tehachapis.
rhpee6033, a retard!
@19
Actually, when you interrupt someone during a speech it’s heckling. Maybe you think the heckling was justified and I can see where you’d be coming from on that, even though I’d disagree with you. Sometimes heckling is justified.
@22
Light and heavy commuter rail have been hit in the Salt Lake City metro. Rail transit has been made into a left/right argument, when it really shouldn’t be. The selling points are just different for the left than they are for the right.
Once again, conservatives like Serial “Ridicule the looks of the president’s daughter” Conservative show their hatred for the President. When bush was president, anyone who spoke out against bush, like the Dixie Chicks and your side blacklisted them. But INTERRUPT the black democratic president during a speech, and you conservatives cheer and justify. Nothing is below you to get back onto power.
Michael, you have a good point there. Amtrak Cascades here was bipartisan when it was launched, in both Oregon and Washington. In the recent edition of Passenger Train Journal, they had mentioned in an article about the soon to close TALGO plant in Milwaukee, that both Governor’s Gregoire and Kitzhaber sent letters telling Governor Walker he should not cancel the project, so did former Secretary of State Ralph Munro. One state that has the GOP in total control but they did not reject Federal rail money, Michigan, and they are in the middle of confiscating(actually more like negotiating the purchase price) track from Norfolk Southern that NS is downgrading, because their freights only need to go 25MPH. Lansing has been investing in the service for years, and in a way, they are trying to protect that investment. Recently, on Amtrak owned trackage between Kalamazoo and the Indiana State Line, they started going 110MPH. Personally, I would like to see it be 110MPH, if possible, on all three Wolverine Corridor services, to Grand Rapids(Pere Marquette), Port Huron), and Detroit/Pontiac(Wolverines). They used to have a run from Chicago to Detroit that continued on to Toledo, Ohio.
The first modern Light Rail line built from scratch in the US was in San Diego, hardly a Liberal bastion of California. To handle higher ridership, they needed more rolling stock recently, and piggybacked on an order with SLC and Houston.
Also, Sound Transit is piggybacking with an operator in a Red State right now. THey need a couple new locomotives, and they piggybacked on the order from Orlando SunRail, being built in Idaho. Although MotivePower has accommodated a blue state operator in recent years, the MBTA in Boston, they are assembling them in the shops of the Providence and Worcester, I believe.