Scott Brown rakes in Wall Street cash in exchange for slowing reform

Same old, same old. Is less regulation really what America is begging for these days?

From mid-June until the Fourth of July, according to a Globe analysis of his campaign finance reports, the Massachusetts senator took in $140,000 from banks and investment firms and their executives, including companies based in the state, such as MassMutual and State Street Corp. That is 400 percent more than the $28,000 received on average by all Republican senators during the same three weeks.

As the money poured in, Brown and his Senate staff were working both publicly and behind the scenes to scuttle $19 billion in fees on the financial industry that would have paid for part of the regulatory overhaul, and to weaken a provision intended to curb certain types of investment activities by banks and insurance companies.

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MSNBC: Jane Hamsher on The likelihood of an Obama primary challenge

As a follow-up to this post, which featured Grayson, Nader, Lerner & Hamsher discussing the Obama tax cut plan and a 2012 Obama primary challenge, I offer the following as a counter-weight. Jane Hamsher, interviewed on MSNBC, fills out her thoughts on the likelihood of a primary challenge to Obama.

Bottom line — she doesn't see it. Her analysis is canny as always, and she's very wired in.



Remarks to notice:

• A primary challenge is "not going to happen, but the unhappiness that it signals is something the White House has to deal with."

• About the White House's desire to pass the full tax cut extension:

The White House didn't want them [Congress] to deal with tax cuts earlier ... I know that they have said differently but many members of Congress confirm, and are upset that they didn't want them to deal with this before the election because they feel, rightly or wrongly, that if they had the ability to vote for the tax cut extension, they might have saved some of their seats.

If true, this is evidence that Obama's stated goals are not his real goals — not just supposition, evidence. Jane earlier wrote (my comments here):

Obama is using the unemployed as an excuse to get what he has wanted all along. And what he wants is to extend all the tax cuts.

This interview supports that statement. If you want Congress not to extend the tax cuts, you bring them up before the election, after which voters would hold members accountable. If you want Congress to extend the tax cuts, you bring them up after the election, cut a deal with McConnell, and say "sorry, it's the best I could do."

Jane's point — he wanted the full extension all along. And Congress's nose is out of joint because they weren't consulted, not because they were necessarily opposed. (My addition: If so, it's all about monster dollar drops parachuting into the 2012 campaign.)

• And finally, this teaser from inside sources:

Privately I'm hearing that Pete Rouse and the president are privately talking about a major restructuring, a house-cleaning, in the White House starting after the first of the year.

What's Congress going to do about tax cuts? Jane: "Ultimately I think that they'll come around and vote for it" even though she doesn't think that they should. If true, not good, but no surprise.

Food for thought, and much to think about. For more, click through to that earlier discussion.

GP Read the rest of this post...

While the TSA is attacking privacy, 16 year old stows away in plane wheel well and falls to death

It's all about security theater.

Keating held a press conference Friday after police searched a wooded area in Milton near where Tisdale's body was found last month. Along a path a Boston-bound plane would have taken while approaching the city, they found dark sneakers with white stripes and a red shirt matching clothing Tisdale's family said he'd worn, Keating said.

Keating said an autopsy showed trauma to Tisdale's body "was consistent with a fall from a significant height."

Investigators also discovered a handprint in grease inside the wheel well on the left side of a Boeing 737 that took off from Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 15, the night Tisdale's body was found, Keating said.

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My CNN stint today on Obama's tax deal and Wikileaks/Assange

On Obama's tax deal:



On Wikileaks:



(And I learned two things today. 1) Don't go to two Christmas parties the night before you're going on TV. And 2) if you think the make-up guy has made you up to look like a character out of Twilight, and not the hot vamp or the hotter werewolf, say something BEFORE you go on the set.) Read the rest of this post...

Obama to host CEO summit this week

Creating jobs is obviously highly important these days. Re-building the middle class as opposed to the upper-class warfare against everyone else needs at least the same level of attention. When you look at the outrageously high annual income of these business leaders, does anyone honestly believe they have any idea what their workers are facing in this environment? These are the people who often profit from firing thousands of workers, so what's in their best (financial) interest is hardly in line with what's good for the US or employees. CNN:

In an effort to "drill down" on the best way to accelerate job creation, the White House says President Obama will meet with business leaders at the Blair House Wednesday as part of a strategy session.

"The biggest challenge we face moving forward is not competition between Democrats and Republicans, but in making sure we are preparing the next generation to compete globally," said White House Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki.

"The working session is an opportunity for the President to continue building strong partnerships in the business community toward that goal," she said.

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Frank Rich on 'gay bashing' in DC

Frank Rich looks at the gay bashing underway in DC. He addresses the controversy at the National Portrait Gallery over the removal of David Wojnarowicz's work "A Fire in My Belly." It was back to the 80s for the Smithsonian. But, Rich brilliantly explains how this is part of a bigger pattern of homophobia that's alive and well in the nation's capital:

It still seems an unwritten rule in establishment Washington that homophobia is at most a misdemeanor. By this code, the Smithsonian’s surrender is no big deal; let the art world do its little protests. This attitude explains why the ever more absurd excuses concocted by John McCain for almost single-handedly thwarting the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are rarely called out for what they are — “bigotry disguised as prudence,” in the apt phrase of Slate’s military affairs columnist, Fred Kaplan. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has been granted serious and sometimes unchallenged credence as a moral arbiter not just by Rupert Murdoch’s outlets but by CNN, MSNBC and The Post’s “On Faith” Web site even as he cites junk science to declare that “homosexuality poses a risk to children” and that being gay leads to being a child molester.

It’s partly to counteract the hate speech of persistent bullies like Donohue and Perkins that the Seattle-based author and activist Dan Savage created his “It Gets Better” campaign in which gay adults (and some non-gay leaders, including President Obama) make videos urging at-risk teens to realize that they are not alone. But even this humanitarian effort is controversial and suspect in some Beltway quarters: G.O.P. politicians and conservative pundits have yet to participate even though most of the recent and well-publicized suicides by gay teens have occurred in Republican Congressional districts, including those of party leaders like Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy.

Has it gotten better since AIDS decimated a generation of gay men? In San Francisco, certainly. But when America’s signature cultural institution can be so easily bullied by bigots, it’s another indicator that the angels Keith Haring saw on his death bed have not landed in Washington just yet.

Not yet. For GOPers, it's blatant homophobia (or for the Lindsey Graham types, it's internalized homophobia.) I also think for many Democrats (including top White House staffers like Emanuel and Messina), it's political homophobia. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

If you can bear to watch the Sunday shows, you'll get a couple of chances to see Obama's communications guru, David Axelrod, explain their brilliant strategic thinking. He's on ABC, CBS and CNN. In an unusual occurrence, there are actually more Democratic guests on the shows today. I think that happens once every two or three years. One of the true liberals, Rep. Jerry Nadler, is on CBS. Although he's straight, I think Nadler is the best LGBT member of Congress. John is also going to be on Howie Kurtz's "Reliable Sources" on CNN, talking about the tax cuts and Wikileaks.

For some reason, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is on FOX. Huh?

Full lineup is here. Read the rest of this post...

Thelonious Monk - Blue Monk

I've loved this music since I was a kid and Jojo's dad used to play when she was growing up. People like Monk don't come around often.

We ventured out yesterday to run errands, sort of forgetting that it's peak holiday shopping time. Neither of us think much about Christmas gifts, birthday gifts or even wedding anniversary gifts, so we tend to forget about the crowds. Outside of grocery shopping neither of us think much about any kind of shopping beyond grabbing a few things online from time to time.

The stores did look fairly busy yesterday, though compared to what I saw in the US recently, the recession hasn't been nearly as hard over here. We don't see the countless signs for commercial real estate deals nor do we see a floundering real estate market. Prices in Paris even continue to rise. The countryside is somewhat different because that's where foreigners (including many Brits) were living. Even so, there appears to be fewer excesses over here compared to the US or UK. The highs are never quite as high and the lows, never quite as low. This is probably what suits the broad majority of working people. Read the rest of this post...

London bankers upset with new EU law on bonus payouts

It's pathetic that the US is lagging behind on this issue. Having the same rules apply in both regions would make sense, but that's not what happens when we're stuck with a Wall Street government.

Bankers were yesterday told there will be no backing down from an EU demand that they should be paid no more than 20 per cent of their bonuses up front in cash, as experts said Europe's pay rules would be the "toughest in the world".

The Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) has resisted an intense lobbying effort by UK officials and the banking industry, which pleaded for the rules to be watered down and phased in only gradually.

Applying from 1 January, the requirements finalised yesterday will cover this year's forthcoming bonus round. Many bankers in Britain are top-rate taxpayers, so any cash component of their bonuses is hit by a hefty 50 per cent tax take.

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Two explosions hit Stockholm

The results were deadly.

One person has been killed and two others hurt by two blasts in the centre of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, amid reports of a bomb attack.

A car blew up near the busy shopping street of Drottninggatan and another blast followed nearby minutes later.

Swedish press reported that the second blast was a suicide bomber, but police said no cause had yet been determined.

Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said a "terrorist attack" which could have been "truly catastrophic" had failed.

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