Voting is still happening in the Senate on the small business lending bill, but it’s unclear whether they will reach agreement on amendments or invoke cloture tonight. If anything changes I’ll let you know. And also…
• Having exempted auto loans from CFPB oversight, GM is jumping into the subprime car loan business. Don’t worry, though, it’s all perfectly safe, and won’t result in price gouging or wage-garnishing or anything.
• The House passed a standalone border security bill last night, after John McCain and his buddies stripped the war supplemental of border security. Will McCain, who accused unions of wanting to recruit undocumented workers for their nefarious organizing schemes, vote against border security again, and give his opponents more gems to be made into commercials?
• The House also passed a slew of manufacturing bills yesterday, one of which (a miscellaneous tariff bill) will actually pass into law, as the Senate managed to pass it. Lawmaking, what a concept! Small ball stuff, but something.
• What can you even say about this Administration power grab, attempting to authorize more warrantless searches? Marcy Wheeler and Adam Serwer say all that is needed to be said. What a disappointment.
• Lindsey Graham, a nominal supporter of immigration reform, also wants to end birthright citizenship out of fear of the anchor babies. What a forthright bipartisan statesman he is.
• With the DISCLOSE Act dead, at least in terms of affecting the 2010 elections, here come the inevitable corporate front organizations looking to pummel Democrats.
• Under-the-radar, but important: the movement to unionize banks.
• Howard Dean offers some red meat, writes out the speech I imagine he would have given at Netroots Nation if he showed up this year.
• Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are worried about the direction of the Basel III international financial negotiations, want hearings.
• The CEO of Moody’s has an uncanny knack of selling off his stocks right before they go down. It’s so celebrated that the SEC wants to know how he did it!
• Fred Barnes, partisan operative. Literally everything the right accuses Journolist of is a reflection of what they do on a daily basis.
• Your modern GOP: voting against health care for 9/11 workers.
• I appreciate Wikileaks’ willingness to put the facts out, but they should have done a better job redacting the names of Afghan informants, and the raw intelligence they released in the Afghan war logs isn’t always reliable.
• Dems to GOP: shut up and quit your whining about the New Black Panther Party.
• Sharron Angle, who doesn’t know the difference between a bill and a law, also is unclear on the difference between a legitimate campaign fundraising company and basically a loanshark, which is the shady firm she’s using.
• I believe you’ll keep hearing about the public option for a long time.
• Is Prudential profiting off of dead US soldiers?
• This is not the same set of statements that I heard Dick Durbin say in June about the filibuster. Maybe he’s finally fed up.
• Considering the accuracy of the phrase, I would keep using “Bush recession”.
• Rand Paul says to stop worrying and learn to love mountaintop removal coal mining.
• Are Venezuela and Colombia headed for war?
• I used every single Facebook security mode that I could, so I’m confident I’m not in this release of 100 million users’ personal data. I don’t really use Facebook much, though, for this reason.



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This is going to be corporate Democrats’ carrot-on-a-stick — something to get the base fired up, but not something that is ever really going to happen. In a sense, much like the GOP’s abortion stance.
Haahaahaaa! Lindsey Graham is afraid of babies!
Expanded warrantless searches are the Big News today – If this happens, and it probably will given Congress’ endless deference to the security state, the government will record everyone’s browsing history.
Birthright citizenship – This is going to end as part of any immigration bill. It’s just one of the many nasty details that will make the immigration debate a stomach-churning affair.
Insider trading – Executives have these 10b5-1 plans that are supposed to decrease insider trading, but they actually enable it. Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo is the only person ever charged with this type of insider trading, and he remains a free man.
Wikileaks – Agreed all informants’ names should have been redacted. But why didn’t the three newspapers who had a month to comb through them saying anything? They’re just as guilty in my view, but the MOTU want to nail Wikileaks.
Public Option – I’m not reassured by the fact that Lynn Woolsey is spearheading the PO revival. But the new CBO report is something every budget scrooge should have to read before demanding entitlement cuts.
On a related note - Number of people forgoing health care is increasing since the end of subsidized COBRA
Let us hope these charges stick. These two have quite a history. They are so “well-connected”, though, that it should be an interesting case.
Wyly Brothers’ $550 Million Stock Sales Draw SEC Fraud Lawsuit
“Charles Wyly raised more than $100,000 for former President Bush’s first campaign for the White House in 2000, making Wyly part of an elite class of fundraisers whom the Bush campaign called “Pioneers.”
“The brothers also funded Republicans for Clean Air, which aired advertisements for Bush and against rival Senator John McCain of Arizona during the primary election campaign in 2000. In 2004, Samuel Wyly donated funds to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which ran advertisements opposing Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator.”
LINK.
Wow. The case sounds pretty solid. Why two brilliant investors who have made billions would want to cheat like this is beyond me. I suspect it is some ideological opposition to government control.
I do not understand how you can be disappointed in Obama. Disappointment implies that you expected better of Obama. I don’t know how long Presidents get to prove themselves and their intentions but the clock on Obama must have run out by now.
Basel III was always going to be a sellout. That these two clowns and financial industry whores are worried just means that they want to do some meaningless chest beating and exert some pressure to get some goodies for their masters, the American banksters.
Re the CEO of Moody’s, it’s important to keep in mind that the SEC is a toothless lapdog. The odds are this will either be found to be all innocent or there will be a fine, small in comparison to the wrongdoing and the profits. A criminal referral to the DOJ, far less likely. A conviction even less so. In saying this, I am not addressing the merits of the case, only the SEC’s lamentable history on enforcing accountability.
Re Wikileaks, I agree with bmull. You have to remember with the US government breathing down his neck, Assange couldn’t really spread the work around or take all the time he might have. And even if he had redacted all the names, the Obama Administration would still be making the charge that he was endangering lives. This is deeply ironic/hypocritical on their part seeing as how Obama’s escalating and prolonging this unnecessary war is outright killing many more, both Afghans and Americans.
You win all the prizes for the day. Muchos chuckles.