The Big Dog Digs Up Some Bones

The bones in this case being the remains of the Glass-Steagall Act that Clinton repealed ten years ago by signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act into law in its place.  Glass-Steagall was the firewall set up after the Great Depression between banks, insurance companies, and investment firms to stop them from getting into each others' realm of business.  Clinton's outgoing act as President was to bring down that firewall, creating the climate that led to the financial ruin that took place over the last decade.  Talking to Jake Tapper on Sunday, Clinton finally signaled he regretted doing that.  Crooks & Liars:

CLINTON: Well, I think on the derivatives – before the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed, it had been breached. There was already a total merger practically of commercial and investment banking, and really the main thing that the Glass-Steagall Act did was to give us some power to regulate it – the repeal. And also to give old fashion traditional banks in all over America the right to take an investment interest if they wanted to forestall bankruptcy. Sadly none of them did that. Mostly it was just the continued blurring of the lines, but only about a third of all the money loaned today is loaned through traditional banking channels and that was well underway before that legislation was signed. So I don’t feel the same way about that.

I think what happened was the SEC and the whole regulatory apparatus after I left office was just let go. I think if Arthur Levitt had been on the job at the SEC, my last SEC commissioner, an enormous percentage of what we’ve been through in the last eight or nine years would not have happened. I feel very strongly about it. I think it’s important to have vigorous oversight.

Now, on derivatives, yeah I think they were wrong and I think I was wrong to take it because the argument on derivatives was that these things are expensive and sophisticated and only a handful of investors will buy them and they don’t need any extra protection, and any extra transparency. The money they’re putting up guarantees them transparency. And the flaw in that argument was that first of all sometimes people with a lot of money make stupid decisions and make it without transparency.

And secondly, the most important flaw was even if less than 1 percent of the total investment community is involved in derivative exchanges, so much money was involved that if they went bad, they could affect a 100 percent of the investments, and indeed a 100 percent of the citizens in countries, not investors, and I was wrong about that. I’ve said that all along. Now, I think if I had tried to regulate them because the Republicans were the majority in the Congress, they would have stopped it. But I wish I should have been caught trying. I mean, that was a mistake I made.

While I'm glad to see Clinton finally admit he's partially to blame for the mess we're in now, it would have been nice if he'd resisted doing so when he could have.  On the other hand, Dubya would have certainly signed that legislation into law during his first year, so odds are excellent we'd still be in the exact same boat we're in now, Clinton or no.

Having said that, yeah Big Dog, you screwed up.  You screwed up big time.  I'm glad to see Obama correct this mistake...or try to anyway, if it wasn't for the GOP blocking the effort to try.

Wonder why that is?  Can't be the GOP wants to see the economy burn between now and 2012, right?  Naah...

Vegas Village Idiocy

A really weird op-ed out of the Las Vegas Review-Journal over the weekend.  Steve Benen explains:

I like to think I can take a joke, and appreciate political commentary intended as humor, but this item from Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wasn't amusing. The headline read, "Time to repeal the 19th Amendment?"

People and candidates for public office should be judged on the basis of their ideas, stance on the issues, character, experience and integrity, not on the basis of age, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion or disability.

Therefore, we must repeal the 19th Amendment. Yes, the one granting suffrage to women. Because? Well, women are biased..... Men are consistent. Women are fickle and biased.

To "prove" his point, Mitchell, head of Nevada's largest newspaper, pointed to poll results showing women voters in the state preferring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) over former state Sen. Sue Lowden (R) by a narrow margin, but preferring Reid over real estate agent Danny Tarkanian by a wide margin. This is evidence of "bias." (That women voters might perceive Lowden as more qualified than Tarkanian doesn't seem to enter the equation at all.)

Mitchell also pointed to recent Gallup data that showed, nationwide, women tend to prefer Democrats, while men tend to prefer Republicans. This, apparently, substantiates the argument that ... well, actually, I have no idea.

If there's a clever insight here, it's hiding well.

And if there's a punchline, I missed it too.  I understand there may be a point about no longer needing equality amendments in the Constitution in our "advanced" political environment and all...and then silliness like this goes ahead and proves quite succinctly exactly why those amendments are there.

I'm not quite sure what the point of the op-ed was, but it was poorly done.  Just because you're editor of Nevada's largest newspaper doesn't mean you should pen an op-ed like this.  You have the right to do it, you're the editor of the paper...but it doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Mitch Explains It All

After getting busted by the President in his weekly address over the weekend, GOP Sen. minority leader Mitch McConnell tried to explain to CNN's Candy Crowley about that little meeting he had with Wall Street execs. He should have kept his mouth shut.

"Did the meeting take place?," CNN Chief Political Correspondent and State of the Union anchor Candy Crowley asked McConnell. "What was the conversation?"

"Well, we certainly didn't talk about blocking the bill," the Kentucky Republican replied. "I don't know anybody who's in favor of blocking this bill."

McConnell added, "I thought [the president] wanted us to have a bipartisan bill. That's what I would like to have. We are in the process of gathering information from people all across the country, from Wall Street to Main Street to try to get advice about doing this right."

McConnell also said that he met recently with bankers in his home state who oppose the current version of the financial reform bill.

Pressed by Crowley about how Cornyn's involvement, at least created the appearance that Republicans were playing politics with the issue of reform, McConnell denied Obama's accusation.

"Well, look, we were talking about financial regulation, as everybody in the country is talking about it," the top Senate Republican said. "Most of the people in New York supported the president, the vast majority of them are on his side. They supported him during the election, they still support him. Is he saying we shouldn't sit down with his supporters and talk about a bill that he thinks we ought to pass and that I think we ought to pass? This is absurd, he..."

"Why was Sen. Cornyn there?," Crowley queried.

"Candy, [Obama] is the one who is trying to politicize this issue. We are the ones who are trying to get it right," he replied.

Nobody's in favor of blocking the bill, says the guy who is leading the efforts of all 41 GOP senators blocking the bill.  They're not politicizing the issue, says the guy saying the bill needs to go back to the drawing board.  That's pretty damned funny.

Hey Mitch, I'm a registered independent in the state of Kentucky, and I'm telling you, you're blocking the bill.  It really is simple:  the GOP is so cocky now that they will gain back the House and possibly the Senate that they believe they can shut down any legislation -- even overwhelmingly popular financial reform -- and get away with it.  I don't think reality is quite that bad for the Democrats, especially if the Republicans keep going down this road.

But the GOP figures you'll vote for them even if they side with the banks, insult your intelligence and lie to you about doing so by telling you they're not in Wall Street's pocket and let the banks off with a slap on the wrist, thus assuring we get another bubble that will burst and wreck our economy time and time again.

It's bad enough that even Candy Crowley is calling Mitch out on it.  The GOP leadership really does think you're that stupid, folks.

And Now, An OKC Bombing Anniversary Message

On the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Murrah Federal building, an armed rally at a Virginia national park is planned today to remind all of us that now there's a Democrat back in the White House, our little domestic terrorism problem is back.

Daniel Almond, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, is ready to "muster outside D.C." on Monday with several dozen other self-proclaimed patriots, all of them armed. They intend to make history as the first people to take their guns to a demonstration in a national park, and the Virginia rally is deliberately being held just a few miles from the Capitol and the White House.

Almond plans to have his pistol loaded and openly carried, his rifle unloaded and slung to the rear, a bandoleer of magazines containing ammunition draped over his polo-shirted shoulder. The Atlanta area real estate agent organized the rally because he is upset about health-care reform, climate control, bank bailouts, drug laws and what he sees as President Obama's insistence on and the Democratic Congress's capitulation to a "totalitarian socialism" that tramples individual rights.

A member of several heretofore little-known groups, including Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and Oath Keepers -- former and active military and law enforcement officials who have vowed to resist laws they deem unconstitutional -- Almond, 31, considers packing heat on the doorstep of the federal government within the mainstream of political speech.

Others consider it an alarming escalation of paranoia and anger in the age of Obama.

"What I think is important to note is that many of the speakers have really threatened violence, and it's a real threat to the rule of law," Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said of the program for the armed rally. "They are calling health care and taxes that have been duly enacted by a democratically elected Congress tyrannical, and they feel they have a right to confront that individually."

On the lineup are several heroes of the militia movement, including Mike Vanderboegh, who advocated throwing bricks through the windows of Democrats who voted for the health-care bill; Tom Fernandez, who has established a nationwide call tree to mobilize an armed resistance to any government order to seize firearms; and former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, who refused to enforce the Brady law and then won a Supreme Court verdict that weakened its background-check provisions.

Those coming to the "Restore the Constitution" rally give Obama no quarter for signing the law that permits them to bring their guns to Fort Hunt, run by the National Park Service, and to Gravelly Point on the banks of the Potomac River. Nor are they comforted by a broad expansion of gun rights in several states since his election.

The brandishing of weapons is "not just an impotent symbol" but "a reminder of who we are," said Almond. "The founders knew that it is the tendency of government to expand itself and embrace its own power, and they knew the citizenry had to be reminded of that." 

There is zero mistaking the symbolism of both the day, the lineup of the speakers and what they have said in the past, and the open display of firearms just a few miles from DC.  The "citizenry has to be reminded" of  the number of people who crawl out of the woodwork whenever a Democrat is in charge of the country, and that the Democrat in question needs to be afraid.

This is bullying, plain and simple.  A group of people who feel politically powerless after just 16 months are now taking to an open rally of armed Americans with the message that they will not fear the government, but that the government should fear them, on a day where 15 years ago, 168 Americans were killed by a truck bomb.

Daniel Almond, it seems, has no problem with the symbolism of invoking the deadliest act of US domestic terrorism in the 20th century to send a message to the President in the 21st.

The message is unmistakable.  After the OKC bombing, dozens of additional militia plots were foiled, and one, the Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta in 1996, was successful.  The door is now opened again on this era of bloody lunacy, only now it's far worse.  Now, rallies like this one are daring the government to try to stop them.

Who will hear the message spoken today at this rally and decide now is the time for action?

StupidiNews!

• Day 5 of the Iceland volcano ash cloud has European airspace shut down, prompting the British Royal Navy to join the effort to return stranded Brits home.
• The 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing today takes place among a rise in militia movement and anti-government tensions.
• A new Pew Research poll shows distrust of the federal government up sharply since Obama took office.
• European regulators are taking a look at Goldman Sachs after the SEC announced fraud charges last week.
• The Library of Congress is archiving tweets...all of them...as it classifies Twitter as a communications revolution.

Last Call

This right here?



If you're a Republican who dares to question Sarah Palin's magnificence, you're the next one on the list as far as these people are concerned.

What happens in 2012 to all the Republicans NOT named Sarah Palin?

Picking A Fight With Rasmussen's House Effect

I've been talking about Rasmussen's "house effect", how every poll they have seems to favor the Republicans, no matter what the situation, for quite some time now.  Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight has cataloged this effect as well, but the outfit's been able to defend itself by using a likely voter model rather than polling all adults.

But there is one poll where Rasmussen has consistently polled all adults rather than defaulting to its likely voter model, on the issue of party affiliation.  And that shows Rasmussen's clear bias towards the Republicans.  Nate Silver explains:

The argument goes like this: those people who vote most reliably in midterm elections tend to be older, whiter, and to have higher social status -- which are also characteristics of voters that generally lean toward the Republican candidate. When coupled with what also appears to be a Republican enthusiasm advantage this cycle, it is quite reasonable to believe that a poll of likely voters (like Rasmussen's) should show more favorable results for the Republicans than one of registered voters or adults (like most others).

This argument is completely true, insofar as it goes. But it is not sufficient to explain the bulk of the Rasmussen house effect, particularly given that Rasmussen uses a "fairly loose screening process" to select likely voters.

In fact, this is quite readily apparent. Although Rasmussen rarely reveals results for its entire adult sample, rather than that of likely voters, there is one notable exception: its monthly tracking of partisan identification, for which it publishes its results among all adults. Since Labor Day, Rasmussen polls have shown Democrats with a 3.7-point identification advantage among all adults, on average. This is the smallest margin for the Democrats among any of 16 pollsters who have published results on this question, who instead show a Democratic advantage ranging from 5.2 to 13.0 points, with an average of 9.6.



To be clear, the partisan identification advantage among registered or likely voters is much smaller. A 3- or 4- point gap would be quite normal there. When making an apples-to-apples comparison to other polls of all adults, however, it is something of an outlier and would reflect a house effect of about 6 points when measuring the net difference between Democratic and Republican preferences.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of pollsters have begun to publish results among likely voters in their take on the Congressional generic ballot. Six pollsters apart from Rasmussen, in fact (these are GWU, Bloomberg, NPR, Democray Corps, OnMessage and McLaughlin) have done so since December. They show the Republicans leading the generic ballot by an average of 2.8 points among likely voters, on average (if explicitly partisan-affiliated polls are included, the margin is similar at R +3.3). This is a potentially excellent result for them -- one which might imply a massive, 50+ seat swing in the House, but is less than the 9-point advantage that Rasmussen now shows, and has shown consistently throughout this period.



Note that the house effect here, again, is about 6 points (the difference between the R+9 that Rasmussen shows and the R+3 that the other likely voter polls do). This is of the same magnitude of the 6-point house effect that was introduced in their construction of the all-adult sample, as described above. In other words, Rasmussen does not appear to be applying an especially stringent likely voter model. Instead, the house effect is endemic to their overall sample construction and is "passed through" to their likely voter sample.

In other words, Rasmussen is stone cold busted.  Just about any Rasmussen poll has to be taken with a six point or more bias towards the Republican position.  The numbers just don't lie, they strongly, strongly favor the Republicans in everything they do.

There's a reason why Republicans are constantly quoting Rasmussen polls as proof the Democrats are doomed.  Nate's got them dead to rights, and the numbers prove it.

As far as I'm concerned, Rasmussen is a GOP polling outfit.

Waiter, There's A Moose Lady In My Mint Julep

Meanwhile a bit south of here in Louisville as the Thunder rolls and the Kentucky Derby museum reopens, America's Favorite Griftebrity, Sarah Palin, showed up to con talk to 16,000 at Freedom Hall for the Women of Joy evangelical conference.

Sarah Palin told a Freedom Hall crowd of about 16,000 Friday night that she was there to inspire women in their faith, not to talk politics.

But the 2008 Republican candidate for vice president acknowledged she couldn’t help but do the latter, saying politics “courses through my veins.”

And Palin — now a best-selling author and headline speaker at tea-party tax protests — did plenty of both in the course of her nearly hour-long talk at an evangelical Christian women’s conference.

“This nation needs you,” Palin told the women. “Know the facts. Stand for what’s right. Don’t be discouraged by the mocking of those who want to claim we just cling to our religion. I’m the first to admit — yeah, I do cling to my faith. That’s all I’ve got.”

Wait a minute.  All she's got is faith?  This woman's supposedly a dark horse candidate for President of the United States and all she's got is faith?

Since when has faith become the most important qualification for someone running for public office in this country?  No offense, but I think a President should bring a bit more to the table than "I quit as Governor because it was hard, I have a show on the Discovery Channel and I have faith."

That's not a resume for a President.  That's a resume for somebody who just got fired from Celebrity Apprentice.

And Sarah Palin telling anyone on Earth to "know the facts" is outright hysterical.

Sunday Funnies: Timmy And The Big Dog Edition

This week's Bobblespeak Translations are here, and ol' Bill Clinton gets to remind the Village just exactly what the score was 16 years ago.

Tapper: is this like 1994?

Clinton: yes we provoked violence back then by ending trickle down economics and in 2008 by putting a black guy in the White House

Tapper: you are digitizing the entire world with your CGI Intitiative - will we all live on Pandora?

Clinton: no - although that would be cool

Tapper: where are your charities helping?

Clinton: we are trying to save devastated areas like Haiti, West Africa, Rhode Island and Syracuse

Tapper: wow that’s bold

Clinton: we’re installing solar lanterns in India

Tapper: Solar Lantern would be a cool
comic character

Clinton: awesome

Tapper: how do you get business to give
away money?

Clinton: Pfizer has a monopoly on a life saving drug and they realized they were losing out on a huge market of poor sick dying people

Tapper: they are filled with humanitarianism

Clinton: I appealed to their innate selfishness

Tapper: good idea - how do you deal with
rampant corruption?

Clinton: I was recently in a place where there were many poor people sleeping on the streets with a few rich people in government-paid limousines - the problem was no one in the whole nation even expect decent jobs, housing or health care

Tapper: were you in Somalia?

Clinton: no Washington DC

On the other hand, now I'm totally tempted to make a fireball-throwing Bill Clinton looking character in Champions Online named Solar Lantern.

An Explosive Release Of Hot Air

That loud "thbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt" sound you're hearing is Mitch McConnell on the teevee completely validating my theory from yesterday that the GOP will oppose financial reform no mater what.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Sunday said it was more than just the so-called "bailout fund" that's keeping him from supporting Democrats' financial regulatory reform bill.

The fund to which McConnell refers is a liquidation pool, paid into by banks, that would be used to ensure a collapsing financial firm would not damage the entire financial system.

But when asked if he would support the bill if Democrats removed that fund, McConnell told CNN's "State of the Union" he would still have other issues with the legislation, though he did not say what those qualms were.

"What we ought to do is get back to the table and have a bipartisan bill," McConnell said. "I don't know anybody in the Senate who thinks we ought not to pass a bill, the question is what it looks like."

What McConnell means by "bipartisan bill" is "one written by Republicans that totally prevents the banks from actually being regulated in any way, because that's what the banks expects from us for their fundraising money."

If Friday's notion that Obama is willing to drop the liquidation pool from the bill was a trial balloon to see the Republicans would work with him on this, then that just got blown out of the sky as well.  I'm not sure why Obama wasted time on doing that, but if he was trying to prove that the Republicans have no intention of working with the Democrats on any legislation ever while he's President, then he's done so.

We've known that since 2007 however.  Not real sure what the hell the deal is on that, but there you are.

On the other hand, this also means the Republicans have convinced themselves that they are holding all the cards, that the voters will turn on the Democrats because of the economy and health care reform, and that the GOP can do whatever they damn well please, up to and including demanding total capitulation from a President they increasingly see as irrelevant.  That means the GOP will certainly start becoming more arrogant, cocky, and obnoxious as they become convinced they'll retake the House and even the Senate in November.  Whether or not that is reality remains to be seen.  The Republicans are acting like it's already a done deal.

Then again I have to begrudgingly admit the point that this is looking like Obama playing 11-dimensional chess again while the GOP is playing Crazy Eights with nothing higher in the deck than a four.  Obama's M.O. is to hold out these olive branches to the GOP that always get grabbed out of his hand, set on fire, urinated on and then the wet ashes stomped out and thrown back in his face.  It does make the GOP look childish and Obama does get to pass his legislation anyway...but the bills that do get signed into law get shifted more and more to the right by Obama's offers.

I fully expect the liquidation pool, like the public option before it, to become a casualty of negotiation.   What continues to bother me is like the public option, it could have passed if it has the President's support.  But being sacrificed right off the bat like that meant the White House was never serious about it being included in the legislation either.  As a result, should financial reform pass (and I'm still skeptical on that) then it will not have the liquidation pool in it.

I appreciate Obama passing things like HCR.  The GOP continues to fall for it and Obama keeps winning in the end.  But negotiating away his position of strength for nothing in return is getting tiresome.

How Does That Work, Exactly?

A volcanic eruption in Iceland is God telling us we shouldn't have passed health care reform.

No really, that's the latest from El Rushbo.

Anyone who takes this nutbar seriously deserves nothing but cruel, cruel mockery.  The man is certifiably insane.

"You know, a couple of days after the health care bill had been signed into law Obama ran around all over the country saying, 'Hey, you know, I’m looking around. The earth hadn’t opened up. There’s no Armageddon out there. The birds are still chirping.' I think the earth has opened up. God may have replied," he said on his radio show Friday.

Hey God?  Honestly?  Rush Limbaugh says he's speaking for you these days.  I know the whole "works in mysterious ways" thing but...really?

A Poll Arising Debate, Part 3

As a follow up to this week's CBS/NY Times poll on Tea Party supporters (which itself sparked a hell of a debate here) NY Times columnist Charles Blow reports on his experience at a Dallas Tea Party rally as an African-American.

I had specifically come to this rally because it was supposed to be especially diverse. And, on the stage at least, it was. The speakers included a black doctor who bashed Democrats for crying racism, a Hispanic immigrant who said that she had never received a single government entitlement and a Vietnamese immigrant who said that the Tea Party leader was God. It felt like a bizarre spoof of a 1980s Benetton ad.

The juxtaposition was striking: an abundance of diversity on the stage and a dearth of it in the crowd, with the exception of a few minorities like the young black man who carried a sign that read “Quit calling me a racist.”

They saved the best for last, however: Alfonzo “Zo” Rachel. According to his Web site, Zo, who is black and performs skits as “Zo-bama,” allowed drugs to cost him “his graduation.” Before ripping into the president for unconstitutional behavior, he cautioned, “I don’t have the education that our president has, so if I misinterpret some things in the founding documents I kind of have an excuse.” That was the understatement of the evening.

I found the imagery surreal and a bit sad: the minorities trying desperately to prove that they were “one of the good ones”; the organizers trying desperately to resolve any racial guilt among the crowd. The message was clear: How could we be intolerant if these multicolored faces feel the same way we do?

That phrase, "one of the good ones."   To help some of you understand what Blow means by that (and some of you already do) he means "a member of a minority group that does not foster negative stereotypes that people have about minorities."  Conservative, Democratic party-bashing, Obama-disliking, Republican-voting African-Americans, for example.

I've been there myself in both educational and work environments, as well as social ones.  It's a very curious feeling, going into a place where you don't look like much of anyone else who is there and then you forget that you don't.  And so does everyone else.

Until you're reminded of it by a stark realization, by what someone says or does.  It's shocking.  Just a little bit different from everyone else...and the people there sometime slip and say something about minorities...and forget you're in earshot.  Sometimes they look over sheepishly when that happens.  Other times they go right on through the point and keep going down that road.

It's always kind of strange when it happens. But it does happen.  And you're reminded that people don't consider you "one of those people."  You're "one of the good ones" instead.

I've been there.  I know what Blow means.  It's there, just under the surface.  And it always will be.

Because like it or not, the more the Tea Party tries to prove that they're not a radical fringe group, the more they show everyone that they are.

Knuckle Up Like A Woman

18-year old Japanese pitcher Eri Yoshida has been signed by the Chico Outlaws of the independent Golden Baseball League (the GBL has teams in the western US, Calgary and Edmonton) and throws a hell of a knuckleball like her major league hero, Tim Wakefield.

And yes, I said her hero.

Female pitcher Eri Yoshida says she hopes to follow in the footsteps of her hero Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox when she heads to the minor leagues next month.

The 18-year-old Yoshida is a knuckleballer who told a news conference Tuesday she learned her pitching style as a young girl by watching video of Wakefield.

She also recently got a few tips from the 43-year-old All-Star at the Red Sox spring training facility at Fort Myers, Fla.

"I want to practice knuckle pitching more, and I want to become a stable knuckleball player like Wakefield," Yoshida said.

Yoshida, Japan's first female professional baseball player, has signed with the Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League and will report for spring training in early May.

She will be the first female to pitch for a pro team in the United States since Ila Borders retired more than 10 years ago, the Outlaws said.

The 5-foot Yoshida said she was stunned by the height of American players, but stressed she is ready to play in the United States.

"I want to bring myself to concentrate only on the catcher's mitt without worrying about the height of players," she said. "I'll do my best."

More power to her.  Power and speed aren't the keys to an unhittable knuckler, finesse and skill are. So yes, I'm looking forward to seeing Yoshida completely flummox hitters twice her size.  I hope she goes far.  I'm still convinced we'll see female pitchers in the American League someday soon.

Healthy Skepticism

Yesterday commenters asked why I was so skeptical about financial reform legislation getting passed.  The White House threatened to veto any bill that didn't have derivatives regulation in it, while the Senate GOP vowed to filibuster the entire bill.

Why am I skeptical?  Because less than 12 hours later, Obama has blinked first.

In the face of stiff GOP opposition, Obama administration officials want Senate Democrats to purge a $50 billion fund for dismantling "too big to fail" banks from legislation that aims to protect against a new financial crisis. Republicans contend the provision would simply continue government bailouts of Wall Street.

A $50 billion taxpayer funded pool?  If that's the case, the Republicans have a point.  But it's not funded by the taxpayers:

One senior Treasury official said Friday that the fund for dismantling giant failing banks, which would be financed by large financial institutions themselves, is unnecessary. He said the costs of dismantling the firms could be recouped from the industry after a liquidation.

If the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., complies, that would remove one component of the bill that Republicans have persistently used to rally opposition. But it was unclear whether that step alone would yield any Republican votes.

Of course it won't.  There's no reason for Obama to give in on this to please the Republicans, they will continue to threaten to filibuster any legislation Obama tries to pass on anything (I thought we made this clear.)  But the banks don't want to pay the $50 billion into the fund, so the Frank Luntz talking point is suddenly a convenient excuse for the White House to ask the Dems not to be so hard on the banks and drop that particular requirement.

Gosh, it's almost like Obama's folding to the banks on this matter.  As the Republicans keep telling us about health care insurance mandates (well, they did last year when they still supported the idea completely) if people have "skin in the game" they're more likely to make smarter decisions.  Same with the bank bailout fund, which is why it's a good idea to create it.  The banks, not the taxpayers, would be fronting the money.

But no.  Now Obama is buying the GOP's idiotic talking point and asking for the Dems in Congress to take it out all of a sudden.

And people ask why I'm skeptical about real reform.  He's playing us again.  Mistermix at Balloon Juice has the right of it:

If you want to see why Senate Republicans are acting like sociopaths by putting financial reform at risk, just take a look at the Cook or Rothenberg House ratings. Rothenberg, for example, moved 44 seats toward the Republicans on Friday.

These moves are mainly driven by the release of first quarter fundraising numbers on April 15, which showed that Republicans are out-raising Democrats in key House races. Democrats won a lot of tough seats in the last election. Those incumbents need a lot of money to defend those seats, both for media buys and get-out-the-vote. In some key races, that’s not happening.

The audience for tea party rhetoric, and for Mitch McConnell’s endless filibusters, is Republican donors. If those people are convinced that the yahoo base will turn out in force, and that the rest of Obama’s agenda can be stopped, they’ll give big. Republican donors know that Republican control of the House, coupled with a constant filibuster in the Senate, will mean endless votes on HCR repeal, passage of watered-down financial “reform”, and little else.

And Obama is already caving in to please the bankers and to get financial reform off the front pages in order to keep it from being a fundraising opportunity for the Republicans.  He doesn't want a drawn out fight on financial reform, a Supreme Court nominee, immigration reform, or anything.  He's running scared from any sort of fight now.

And in the end that's going to be a disaster for the Dems.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Iceland's volcanic eruption continues to strand European air travelers due to a massive cloud of volcanic ash.
• A state judge has struck down Arkansas's voter-approved gay adoption ban as unconstitutional.
• Pakistan has agreed to reopen the investigation into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto after a UN report on the matter blasted the Musharraf government.
• Democrats are saying that yesterday's Goldman Sachs fraud indictment by the SEC warrants immediate passage of financial reform legislation.
• Mark your calendars:  May 12 is National Lab Day for scientists, teachers and students.