This Week’s Duplicitous, Hypocritical, Lying Sack of Complete Crap Award goes to Mitch McConnell
And, this week’s Duplicitous, Hypocritical, Lying Sack of Complete Crap Award (trademarked) goes to [drum roll] Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. McConnell is patently guilty of courting Main Street with inflammatory us-versus-big-government rhetoric, while hob-knobbing with greedy bankers whose sole ambition, at the present, is to kill any financial reform in the hopes that everything stays just the way it is. The whole sordid affair is spelled out in a recent op-ed piece published in McConnell’s hometown paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader:
FOXBusiness reported on Monday that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell recently called on about 25 Wall Street executives, many of them hedge fund managers, to hear their complaints about proposals for regulating the financial industry.
With him was Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which raises campaign money for Republican candidates for Senate.
“The undercurrent of the gathering,” FOX reports, “was undeniably political. … McConnell and Cornyn made it clear they need Wall Street’s help” to defeat the reforms by electing more Republicans in November.
On Tuesday and again Wednesday, McConnell took to the Senate floor to denounce a bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee.
McConnell’s objections to the financial reform that was debated on the Senate floor last week was an almost verbatim reiteration of a talking points memo drafted by Frank Lutz, a Republican pollster. The parroted objections, in substance, are that the proposed financial reform will lead to nothing but endless bailouts for too-big-to-fail banks at the taxpayer’s expense.
Here in reality, what the legislation actually does is prescribe the procedure by which too-big-to-fail banks, that do fail, must dismantle and dissolve without costing taxpayers so much as a wooden nickel. The legislation would force a failing behemoth to eat its own crap and sell off what is fit for consumption; the polar opposite of the horror-fantasy that McConnell is talking, under the guise of looking out for the little guy.
This illustrates, in graphic nudity, the under belly of the Republican strategy: Strap on the knee pads and go begging for money from corporate America and Wallstreet and promise to do their bidding, even though it is to the clear detriment of the greater good. But when the cameras are rolling, through the vehicle of falsities and exaggerations, pound the populous drum, scaring the living shit out of low-information Fox News devotees about how evil Democrats are for sucking up to the same people that you are sucking up to.
What a disturbingly twisted, sick bastard you are, Senator. And your award…I know it is here somewhere…ah, here it is in my pocket..the bird.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/20/mitch-mcconnell/bank-bailouts-not-bill-liquidation/
McConnell’s claim of endless, taxpayer funded bailouts: False.
The system needs a huge overhaul! The financial waters are running deep and extremely murky..
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=51&articleid=20100417_51_E2_WASHIN80351&archive=yes
Bastards.Kinda funny these both came out on the same day too huh ? Maybe coincidence, maybe not.
Both sides have their talking points, both fulla crap. The part about it not costing the taxpayers a cent is misleading.The wording on the Dodd Bill is something about “funding at some future time” of 50 billion from the banks.Which is about 5% (depending upon whose figures you read) of what the Bailout has cost thus far.And it’s under control of Treasury.
So “not gonna cost taxpayers a cent” means as long as any bailout is less than 5% of the 2008 bailout, occurs at some future point when this hypothetical account is funded, and if Timmy Geithner says to release the funds-then it might not cost taxpayers a dime.
As far as I know the Resolution Process is under control of the Fed as well as the CFPA. If you really believe Bernanke will change his policy 180 degrees and Resolve rather than bail out any TBTF banks, you are far more optimistic than I am.
Both sides do have their talking points. The question is which side’s talking points are more closely wedded to reality. The Democratic Party wins that contest. No single piece of legislation will ever be perfect, and more likely than not, will leave a great deal to be desired. Evolution and progress are incremental, not instant. As long as steps in the right direction are being taken, I’m satisfied.
Lawyer,
respectfully, I’d like to point out that talking points and the actual legislation are two different things. Like with HCR, the Democrats had excellent talking points but the bill itself was a bailout of the health insurance industry.
Same with the Dodd Bill, Democrats say some really good things about Fat Cats, etc but look at the actual legislation.It neuters CFPA and TBTF initiatives.
Incremental may be satisfactory.Nonexistent isn’t.
@Oso, Lawyer
The actual legislation on HCR was not watered down by duplicitous Democrats alone, the entire Republican Party was against it: they suggested nothing be done. These weren’t just a series of talking points, they were pretty clear positions. Respectfully, to call HCR a “bailout” of the healthcare system is a gross oversimplification. The resulting end to coverage caps, and the end to prexisting conditions means the healthcare insurance I’ve paid for all my adult life, now actually means I’m covered.
Previously, my buy-in to this formerly worthless coverage was mandated by my various employers, it was the equivalent of a protection racket.
There are certainly problems with the HCR law, but Republicans fought all of it lock stock and barrel and it was GOP opposition that eliminated, at the very start of it all mechanisms that would have kept this from being a windfall for the Heathcare insurance industry : single payer, the public option.
As far as talking points go, I sincerely doubt they bother any of us because we all know what they are: horse shit.
What I think worries us is all the people in America and the world who accept talking points as “factual summaries” as opoosed to just spin.
-SJ
SJ,
yeah really good point,people accepting talking points as factual summary. Like my teabagger coworkers who KNOW Obama’s program is radical socialism. They know all (the lies)about Van Jones and ACORN-but none of them’s got the remotest clue about what the Fed actually does or recognizes names like AIG or Citigroup.
I think what is really getting to me, is my personal anger with the administration-then I have to defend the administration all day long during the weekday against the teabaggers.
@Oso
I’m sending you a monogrammed baseball for Christmas, or at least ear plugs to drown them out.
-SJ
While I’m not as partisan as the rest of you folks apparently are, I do concur. McConnell is about as lowball as you can possibly get – even by Washington’s standards. When he started bitching and moaning about the Republicans’ lack of “time” at that ridiculous healthcare summit, he couldn’t have looked more petty if he busted.
Those skunky bastards. GOP to filibuster Wallstreet reform:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/16/unified-gop-to-block-sena_n_540823.html
I absolutely despise this feckless farting fool. I can’t abide his face, his voice makes the squirrels run away, and the mockingbirds think they are crows. Great, informative piece. Sent to Reddit now to Digg it!
Is is a strange twisted world of the Republican politicians.
I have my doubts if they will be able to, but I certainly hope they are able to put away some of the lying bags-o-crap over on Wall Street.
You know what, between the two of us Mr. Lawyer, we have nailed these bastards! Great post. 🙂