Like…why bother mutha fuckas? The STOCK bill, Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, that the Senate busted their collective asses to pass (96-3) after a 60 Minutes story on Congressional insider trading , and which sucked anyway, was made even more useless by that fuckwit extraordinaire Eric Cantor behind closed doors no less. From an LAT writeup:
But the decision by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to exclude a provision that sought to monitor the flow of “political intelligence” — a relatively newly defined practice of selling Washington information largely to financial investors — puts the legislation on an uncertain path. The Senate bill required those who broker in political intelligence to register much the way lobbyists must do.
“What a sorry — but telling — display,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, a government watchdog group. “The Republican leadership’s weakening of legislation banning congressional insider trading reflects its commitment to the hedge funds and Wall Street interests.”
GOP leaders stood by their decision to dash the provision, which had been added to the Senate bill by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). House Republicans instead opted to have the issue studied.
Cantor, Wall Streets BFF and confidant, took a pen to the already weak-ass bill the Senate whole-heartily passed and slashed the only two provisions with teeth. Certainly the House Democrats would stand up and scream in horror about that fuckery.
Nope. The bill passed the House 417 to 2.
Dylan Ratigan interviews several gents on this gigantic pile of bullshit of a bill below. Ratigan seldom plays favorites, as he usually skewers both parties when they deserve it. This time..they both deserve it imho:
Both bills now need to jive of course..but who gives a shit as the Senate version was useless to begin with imho. Of the hundreds of elected idiots who voted on this bill, only a total of five..yes five…voted against it in both branches of Congress.
From TPM a bitchslapping of the legislative branch of our federal government by pointing out the obvious. From Steve Benen a piece which tells us who really weakened the bill entitled, GOP, lobbyists partner to weaken STOCK Act.
That the GOP and their friends on K St made this bill as useful as tits on a bullfrog is not news. What is news is how easily the Democrats fell into lockstep with those assholes for me, both branches of them.
What I found amazing was that a Republican,Sen. Chuck Grassley congress critter from Iowa, tried to strengthen this weak-ass bill. He even went so far as to write a very public complaint against his own party members. One would think this would be a sign to the D’s, in both branches, to stand firm and refuse to pass legislation that does little, if anything, to police our congress critters when it comes to getting richer off insider information and providing even a touch of transparency to the legislative process.
But it didn’t.
Disclosure and Transparency…two things we must never expect from the Democrats either apparently.
Yet my friends, who continue to support the D’s with their votes in the voting booths, will find a way to apologize for this fuckery as Steve Benen’s piece does on the Maddow Blog. I am so tired of apologists for these assholes I could scream myself hoarse.
If this display of disgust doesn’t wake you folks up..nothing will. And it makes me wonder why I keep trying to show that we really are ruled by one party, The Corporatocracy, with two names, the Democrats and the Republicans.
Dusty
I am a..brown Cali bitch that is quite the opinionated,political, pain-in-the-ass, in your face kinda girl that also loves baseball and music to a fault.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.--Albert Einstein-*One Response to “The STOCK Act: more holes than a slice of swiss cheese. D’s onboard with it anyway.”
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We are ruled by money right now. I agree with that. I just posted a comment on another site because my sister informed me that she will not vote for Obama because it would be no different than voting for Romney, as they “make the same decisions after the election, so there is no difference.”
I am posting the comment intended for her here, as I want you to see it also:
I think the reason is that the election is primarily decided on emotion. What contributes to emotion is one’s current personal status. How is he doing? And negative campaign ads and sound bites; sound bites because most people are woefully informed and will remain so. Negative ads because most people literally cannot reason well or logically, and so rote negativity works. If one is leaning in the GOP direction, for example, and he hears that Obama supports raping babies and shredding kittens, he will then say “I would never vote for that infant rapist felinicidal maniac,” without considering that the charge may be false.
Some of the more intelligent people will not believe a lie until they have heard it dozens of times. The lie must slowly reflect reality, gradually become real. They rote learn what they know. Therefore, having the money to rote teach is paramount in a political contest.
The only solution is major campaign finance reform or ultimate Supreme Court intervention. Short of one of those, we have a de facto plutocracy.
There is president for the Supreme Court stepping in, ignoring other Constitutional law, and restoring democracy. In 1962 a case went to the Supreme Court to force the Tennessee State legislation to redistrict. Per the Tennessee Constitution, the state never had to do this until they were ready. However, since the last time districts were drawn, the rural communities had almost vacated, leaving only a handful of people in each rural congressional district. The effect of this was that people in rural communities elected most of the congressmen in that state, meaning that anyone who intended to become a congressmen had to campaign to represent the rural minority and not to represent the urban majority. Therefore, the rural-minority-elected congressmen would never vote to redistrict because that would take power from the minority that elected them and that kept them in office.
Since the federal government could not force Tennessee to structure its legislature this way or that way, it was an unsolvable problem.
The court ruled that enforcing the right of a citizen’s vote to count, stopping a state from effectively disenfranchising him, was a fundamental Constitutional protection, and that no prohibitions against violating the autonomy of a state’s right to structure its own legislature could overrule individual Constitutionally protected liberty. Majority urban votes essentially did not count, as they had no effect on the direction of the state. Therefore, the majority of Tennessee residents were disenfranchised by the state law, which happened to be about redistricting and so happened to touch on the legislature’s structure.
Tennessee was forced to redistrict. This ruling was the original precedent for the one man, one vote, concept.
The Court has stepped in and prevented oligarchy in America in the past and it could, and I believe would, again. However, as you know, it is not currently going in that direction. It’s most recent major ruling concerning this (Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission), went the other way and gave great power to Super PACS, unions and corporations, which makes the nation more plutocratic, not less.
The Court currently has a 5-4 conservative majority. It cannot be liberal reactionary with this constitution.
Two conservative justices are currently in historical retiring age.
Two liberal justices are in retiring age also. That is four justices in all that are nearing the exit.
Obama appointed two justices last year.
It is very likely that the next president will determine the direction of the Supreme Court, by far the most powerful branch of government in the United States, for the next twenty years, or in other words, through 2032. I am middle-aged. That court will sit until I am elderly.
This election is not just about who will win the executive office, which in the grand scheme of things, is not really that relevant. It could be about whether this nation will be an each-man-for-himself Plutocracy or not.
Please pass this along to your fiancé, as I hear rumors she is considering not voting because Obama and Romney are essentially cut from the same cloth. While I agree with her in part, the judicial cloths they will sew onto the American fabric for the next twenty years, if elected, are very, very different; and I cannot stand the thought of the hideous argyle pattern Romney would choose.