Thanks David; I suspect McConnell et al are figuring out the politics of voting for Bernanke.

Tide Turns Slightly Back Toward Bernanke In Final Days

Why? Because we must, we must, we must increase the bust.

Simple Questions for Bernanke

1-what mistakes did you make?
2-what have you learned from your mistakes?
3-have can you be sure you learned the right lessons?
4-why should we believe you now?

When Bernanke has successfully answered all these questions,

Send the questions over to Barack Obama.

Trust neither set of responses.

Bernanke like Cheney and Bush knows where the bodies are buried,and because of that he will be confirmed.
These Demorats will again show that their on the side of Shadow Government and definitely not the people.
And yes I include Clinton and his cronies as part of that

Ha! Was there ever a serious doubt?
He’s Wall Street’s guy. Wall St. owns our elected officials.

But hey, they sure like to play to the crowds, don’t they?

Did anyone ever think Bernanke wouldn’t be confirmed?

Did anyone ever think O & the Ds wouldn’t do it in a way other than maximum embarrassment for everyone concerned?

Instead of black sedans, these guys should be chauffered around in clown cars.

Shorter Greenspan: There won’t be a bubble.
Shorter Bernanke: There isn’t a bubble.
Shorter Summers: There wasn’t a bubble.

Pick your poison.

Watching Dr. Elizabeth Warren valiantly trying to arrange for viable restraints on the financial industry, with opponents who systematically lie and conceal, and have put in place the laws that make that possible, I would love her to be in charge but doubt that anyone not part of the scene and knowing its convolutions can succeed. That’s not necessarily Bernanke, since he like Greenspan totally disregarded the ramifications of the hollowing out of our investments, but has to be some one that knows where to look and whose arms to twist.

As we have seen with recent Bush AG and SC confirmation hearings, answers are not assurances of performance. Even Obama talks a great game.

Bernanke has a track record. Confirmation or rejection should be based 100% on that.

Hugh had a good diary up on Bernanke.

Why couldn’t Liz be in charge and just consult secretly with some insiders who know the inside game? Someone like that guy who got caught with the prostitute, his name escapes me at the moment.

There’s good ol’ Chris Dodd pissing all over his constituents again. It seems that, having announced his “retirement”, he now feels free to do what he really wants to without worrying about the impact to a re-election campaign. In days gone by, we may have expected that to mean that he would be willing to pull out the stops and go the extra distance for the little people who voted for him all these years. But nowadays, it just means that he is already working for his new bosses, the corporations who have agreed to pay him as a “consultant” (or lobbyist, or influence peddlar). As a result, he now wants to kill the consumer protection agency for financial products, take a long “breather” from health care reform legislation, and shove Bernanke down America’s throat again. Dodd has abandoned even the appearance of working for the People, and is now working full-time for the Wall Streeters and banksters AGAINST the interest of the voters and taxpayers, while still occupying a seat in Congress and drawing a government paycheck.

How many other “Congress-people” are already working full-time for their corporate sponsors? Look at Harry Reid – everyone knows he won’t win his election in November. Is he going all out to get that HCR across the finish line before his term is up? No, he and Nancy Pelosi are looking for ways to use reconciliation, not to make the bill better and fix the problems with the Senate fiasco, but to make it even worse by simply dreaming up some other hugely unpopular tax scheme in order to protect the special arrangements made for the unions. Does that sound like legislators working for the good of the People, or taking orders from the insurance industry?

The recent big corporate giveaway by the gang of crooks which used to be our “Supreme Court” has guaranteed that this will be the norm going forward. Never again will Congress lift a finger for the benefit of ordinary Americans. The corporations have taken absolute control of all three branches of our government, and every act of every official from now on is exclusively to benefit for-profit corporations and the oligarchs who own them. The Carlyle Group’s ultra-right wing stooge squad, formerly the US Supreme Court, have declared every aspect of our nation to be the private property of their corporate masters, and all human citizens to be slaves to the whims of the greediest, most corrupt crooks on the face of the planet.

I guess we can either take up arms against the oppressors or emigrate. I’m looking for an exit before Halliburton seals the borders…

Oh dear!

We cannot, gimlet, permit oursevles to “measure” members of the epiphitic cla$$e$ based on their performance, for they are above such mundane restraints.

Remember, they make “reality” whatever they wish it to be.

And mere citizens cannot possibly understand just how hard and difficult that grand “performance” actually is, even for the stellar wisdoms who, out of the very goodness of their hearts, perform this feat as a publicc service.

We mustn’t presume to judge those who reside on Olympus, they, simply, are above our understanding.

(The preceding snark is for enterainment porpoises only)

I (finally) watched Bill Moyers interview with David Corn and Kevin Drum last night, thanks to TiVo, and they didn’t have much good to say about Bernanke. I keep hoping he’ll get tossed out on his ear, followed by Geithner, Summers and Rahm. (Also, I want a pony.)

Bernanke must be saved for the sake of the stock market.

Won’t be much of a stock market left, the way things are going.
No money, no buyers. No buyers, no market.
Unless they’re figuring that the institutional buyers are enough, all by themselves, to keep the market going for the next ten or fifteen years.

Have you watched her in action? She’s going to be straight up, it’s one of her best functions as a professor – and scares the financial mogul horde out of their minds.

And we see in stark reality that the democratic senators learned absolutely nothing from this past week’s special election in MA. Status quo must be maintained. I’ve never quite felt such certainty that my party is the Titanic heading for the iceberg and it is too late to turn the ship of state to save it.

American government by the people and for the people is dead. God save American government!

good un! lol

Where is Perris and his Panera breakfast live blog this morning?

all the casino action should attract some rubes

Earlier David Dayen

http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/12/03/bernanke-yes-to-social-security-cuts-no-to-new-jobs-bill/

No second stimulus, no jobs bill, no public investment to deal with the worst hiring crisis since the Depression, no relief for a jobless recovery, but yes to cutting people’s meager Social Security benefit and their health care in their old age.

He certainly looks like an important cog in team Obama’s economic plan for America. Obama’s apparent message from the Massachusetts Massacre “We need to better sell what we’re doing to the public, not change it”.

Bob Herbert yesterday

Democrats in search of clues as to why voters are unhappy may want to take a look at the report. In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people — more than 30 percent of the entire U.S. population — fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which is a meager $21,834 for a family of four.

The question for Democrats is whether there is anything that will wake them up to their obligation to extend a powerful hand to ordinary Americans and help them take the government, including the Supreme Court, back from the big banks, the giant corporations and the myriad other predatory interests that put the value of a dollar high above the value of human beings.

Confirmation of Bernanke after the MA senate results will be an exquisite demonstration that Obama and the Democratic Party leadership still think the problem is communicating their message not the policies they are pursuing. I sit, and I watch, and I get a little hope that these cyphers of the plutocracy will wise up to just how damagingly transparent they have been on their corporatist schemes to bail-out the banksters, AHIP and Pharma (not to mention the torturers and the M-I complex). I am convinced now more than ever that the best hope is the death of the Democratic Party and that something can rise from the ashes to replace it. Geez, that’s what hope has become in just one long year. Bottoms up, as they say.

I think you’re correct the plan is to fix this via tighter marketing.

Much like the recently announced intention by Team Obama (TO) to control the election platforms of the Ds that are going to be up for reelection, TO’s support for Bernanke seems to be focused on circling the wagons and controlling the message. Just as TO seems to have drawn the wrong conclusions from the MA vote, they are unwilling to listen to anyone that can show why Bernanke should be replaced. Anyone reading Obama’s speeches from last April can see that Bernanke is doing exactly what TO wants done. The fact that Bernanke doesn’t seem to even understand what having an Option Arm explode actually means, much like Geithner’s inability to properly explain why he needed to use TurboTax to defend his tax mistakes, are apparently net positives perhaps simply because these side issues add to the chaos. Frank Rich argues that Obama needs to reboot into a populist acting leader, which while I agree in principle leaves me unclear how Obama could do that without betraying his actions of the past and core values.

The “let Obama be Obama” arguments of the past along with the “it’s only been a year” defenses missed the part where the Chicago School Harvard graduate made it clear over and over again that he is acting on his core values. Protecting the parts of the economy he deems important via his preferred use of blank slate rhetoric. Even were they to lose Bernanke, which is very unlikely, the replacement would be selected for their orthodoxy and previous banking experience. Picking a person that actually wants to be a regulator is almost certainly out of the question.

By trying to take over the campaigns of the Ds they probably hope to control criticism from the left and by omission will almost certainly hand the populist positions to the Rs. Expecting a full scale attempt to discredit the hippies in the future as TO attempts to massage the message seems the most likely outcome rather that a reboot.

Americans have got to see the blatant disregard of our representatives to act in accordance to the will of their constituency as someone or something else in charge of those same representatives.I have never seen in my life such a Corporatocracy type government that is so out in the open about their Agenda to shift all the wealth to the 2% and in turn leaving all the downside to the rest of us.
This is beyond madness!

The Jobs Bill is a perfect opportunity for Budget Reconciliation.Keep your eye on this one folks to see who the Rats really are.

Here’s “Team Obama” massaging the message:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/aravosis-looks-theyre-getting-ready-d

Remember all that talk about “pre-existing conditions”? Well, forget it. Obama’s giving that away, too. The only things they are going to retain will be the mandate, the penalty, and the anti-abortion crap.

By trying to take over the campaigns of the Ds they probably hope to control criticism from the left and by omission will almost certainly hand the populist positions to the Rs. Expecting a full scale attempt to discredit the hippies in the future as TO attempts to massage the message seems the most likely outcome rather that a reboot.
temptingfate

The standard explanations for losses like Massachusetts are “DFHs, Nader, Ran a terrible campaign, Was really a response to local issues or nonspecific frustration”.

This is as annoying as “They attacked us on 9-11 because they hate our freedom”.

Fortunately I see a few pundits are indeed laying it at Obama’s feet as a referendum on his policies.

“Even were they to lose Bernanke, which is very unlikely, the replacement would be selected for their orthodoxy and previous banking experience. Picking a person that actually wants to be a regulator is almost certainly out of the question.”

This says it very nicely. Making Bernanke a scapegoat and replacing him with another useless syncophant is a waste of time unless you get to the real problem—which is that the system itself needs an overhaul.

Here’s a Rich goodie from this morning’s newspaper offerings:

“His two principal economic policy makers are useless, if not counterproductive, surrogates. Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary, was probably fatally compromised from the moment his tax lapses surfaced; now he is stalked by the pileup of unanswered questions about the still-not-transparent machinations at the New York Fed when he was knee-deep in the A.I.G. bailout. Lawrence Summers, the top administration economic guru, is a symbol of the Clinton-era deregulatory orgy that helped fuel the bubble.”

And don’t miss the last four paragraphs.

LINK.

And warnings of what awaits us (surprise, surprise), thanks to the UK Guardian:

Wall Street’s $26m lobbyists gear up to fight Obama banks reform

LINK.

Much as I like and respect Elizabeth Warren, she wouldn’t be a good replacement for Bernanke at the Fed. She would, however, make an excellent replacement for Geithner. Additionally, firing Geithner and replacing him with an honest person who obviously sides with Main Street over Wall Street would add instant credibility to the Obama administration (which it desperately needs right now).

“Chris Dodd and Judd Gregg issued a joint statement today expressing confidence that Ben Bernanke would be confirmed to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.”

Of course! He’s a vital part of the gang working on the massive transfer of wealth to the plutocracy as part of the bankrupting of America.

This is part of a very forceful establishment blowback, which is essentially positing that Bernanke must be saved for the sake of the stock market

The stock market is a bubble. Bernanke has been the major force behind inflating it and keeping it going. So of course, if Bernanke goes the stock market will fall. That’s what happens to bubbles when a reality call is made on them. They burst because they weren’t based in reality. This is actually another failure of Bernanke. The stock bubble is a major misallocation of resources into an unproductive sector. But the bubble bursting will have downside effects across the economy. This is true now or whenever it does burst, and it will burst.

Judd Gregg is a complete braindead idiot. Can any remember that Obama wanted him to head Commerce? As for Dodd, what an unmitigated whore he has become. Both by the way are leaving the Senate so this is really a big FU from them as they are out the door.

Thanks David.

I wonder what Dodd got back in return for selling out.

Sounds a lot like what TO is doing with education “reform”. Obama trotted out Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond as his educational advisor during the campaign. She is widely known and acknowledged as a world-class expert on school reforms that really work. Many of us assumed she would become the Secretary of Education.

Boy, were we wrong!

As soon as it came time to nominate a secretary the WH team started to leak that she was too teacher-friendly and too “cozy” with the teacher unions, making her unacceptable to republican senators. Suddenly Arne Duncan, Obama’s businessman/basketball buddy from Chicago was trotted out as the nominee, a man who has never taught in a classroom in his life.

He, however, was business friendly and struck all the right notes, in harmony with the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, attacking poor teaching as the reasons for all society’s ills. Even though Duncan’s “reforms” in Chicago were abject failures he smoothly sailed into the secretary’s job and now has billions of taxpayer dollars to expand his failed programs on a national scale (Race to the Top). Republicans and business opponents of public education couldn’t have asked for more in their wildest dreams. Their rhetoric is still coming out of the Dept. of Education.

Even Dianne Ravitch, a conservative educational historian, was stunned and claimed that Duncan was “Margaret Spellings [Bush's last Sec. of Education] in drag”

Obama has done very little to convince we that he is of the corporations/banks, by the corporations/banks, and for the corporations/banks.

Oh Lord. Can you hear the sounds of millions of ‘support the Senate bill because it has good things in it’ Democrat voters’ heads exploding?

I think Bernanke will be confirmed because Obama wants him in. Obama has jurisdiction to force him to do more. Obama has plenty of tools at his disposal to eviscerate Bernanke if he refuses to play, but the fact is that Bernanke is doing exactly what the President wants him to do. More corporate purchasing of the nation, more corporate protectionism, more corporatocracy.

Bernanke is in because that’s what the Democrats really want. To suggest that ANY of them want to take on the system is ludicrous.

I’m aware of about two or three genuinely left of the center or liberal nominees by President Obama for high up positions.

He doesn’t put them up for anything else because he doesn’t want them. DLCer, New Democrat, Third Way, bullshit.

ye gads. How far American “civil society” has fallen since “the End of the Cold War” disposed of Any RESTRAINTS on the greed and ambitions of the mighty & wealthy.

Their (Neo-Con/Big Finance) takeover, HIJACKING, of the “Democratic” Party is SO COMPLETE, that “Democratic” President Bill Clinton can SIGN INTO LAW the horrific, “GUARANTEED to WRECK THE ECONOMY, again…

(just as Phil Gramm’s DEREGULATION of the Savings & Loans led to their collapse, titanic FRAUD, and the Bush-1 Recession in the late 1980s)

….ALSO RADICAL RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN Phil Gramm written GRAMM-LEACH-BLILEY ACT of 1999, and Commodity Futures ‘Modernization’ Act of 2000.

YOU CAN NOT sign RADICAL RIGHT-WING Republican DEREGULATION bills into law…. and NOT be a RADICAL RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN!

Similarly, President Obama choose for renomination as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke – Radical Right-Wing Republican President GEORGE W. BUSH’s pick for that office – Obama can not appoint a RADICAL RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN to such an important office, and not have Obama PUSHING RADICAL RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN financial policies.

The entire top tiers of the “Democrat” Party are now RADICAL RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN financial DEREGULATORS & economy wreckers!

1999 – Senator Byron Dorgan, one of only 8 “Democratic” Senate votes AGAINST the Gramm-Leach-Bliley & Commodity Futures ‘Modernization’ Acts – predicting that these “TERRIBLE acts,” and “TERRIBLE ideas” will WRECK the US economy in about 10 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvnO_SH-4WU&feature=related

YES, Virginia, the ENTIRE TOP TIERS of today’s “Democrat” Congress, and White House, now SUPPORT those TERRIBLE IDEAS and persons (like Bernanke) who push them through clear to the destruction of the American economy…

Your article states,”This is part of a very forceful establishment blowback, which is essentially positing that Bernanke must be saved for the sake of the stock market.” So we are to believe that if bernanke was to drop dead of a heart attack or be found dead with a heroin needle stuck up his ass, the stock market would collapse are all would be lost? How pathetic. Nobody…Nobody is that critical to any organization or process, especially anyone who has been such an abject failure at his job as bernanke has, unless, of course, you are one his wallstreet fellow theives.

Of course they do, and why shouldn’t they? All the people in government are people at the top. They’re all the people who never have to worry about the things common Americans have to. No matter what happens, most of the people in government at the top will be at the top whether they’re in government or not. And it hardly matters to them what happens to the rest of us, because they’ll still be fine when the dust settles. Democrats have chosen the health of the Fortune 500, AIPAC, the Saudi lobby, and the China lobby, over the people that actually live in this nation. Likewise have Republicans. Neither of the two parties give a tinker’s cuss about real Americans.

Bernanke will be confirmed. Orrin Hatch eluded to this today with a remark about BHO’s track record of political appointments. I interpreted this remark as “better the devil you know, instead of…”

I don’t think the tide ever really turned away from Bernanke. A few populist feints in the direction of not confirming him, but who in Washington has the balls? Besides, it’s not like any of the likely replacements would do anything differently with the open market operation. Like jack up the fed funds target rate at a time when small businesses are starved for credit, foreclosure rates and unemployment continue to rise?

Here’s my rule of thumb: if Judd Gregg’s for it, I’m against it.

Obama is confident. The fix is in for Helicopter Ben.

Word! My new name for the Orahma adminstration is the Insane Clowne Posse.

As we have seen with recent Bush AG and SC confirmation hearings, answers are not assurances of performance. Even Obama talks a great game.

Bernanke has a track record. Confirmation or rejection should be based 100% on that.

I saw a newspaper article entitled

“Hero arsonist puts out fire he started.”

The question is can the U.S. withstand another another fire?

Blue Dog Marion Berry retiring from Congress

hmmm, do I blame Jane Hamsher or Raul Grijalva for this one, ’tis a puzzlement /s