Sen. Dick Durbin, the second most senior democrat in the Senate, cashed out his stock the day after meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Durbin took the money and invested much of the $115,000 in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
The transfers occurred on Sept. 19th. The prior day he met with Paulson and Bernanke on the banking crisis. Bloomberg reports that “The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index plunged 4.7 percent last Sept. 15 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp.’s government-engineered takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. By the end of October, the index had fallen 22.6 percent.”
I have long advocated a change in the ethics rules to require blind trusts for all members of Congress. Currently, members can make killings on the market by using their access to policy changes and special tips. For prior columns, click here and here.
Durbin, 66, insists that he was only doing what other people were doing: moving his money to safer investments. Moreover, he insists that the thrust of the information that he received from the Administration was released publicly the next day. This may be so. However, as noted in the above columns, senators have performed better than industry experts in the the past and the suspicion is that their success is due in some part to the special information that they received through their positions. More importantly, these trades and investments create an obvious appearance of self-dealing. Why should Senators (who generally have no skills or training in the market) insist on making these investments instead of using an expert in a blind trust? They obviously believe that they can do better — and historically they have. The result is that members routinely invest in areas where they are voting and legislating. If you want to write the laws affecting the markets, you should not be allowed to play the markets.
For the story, click here.
Call me irresponsible, call me unreliable, but it’s undeniably true….I’m irresponsibly mad about Obama. I mean that as in happy with him, sorry everyone. So far and it is far too early to really see, he appears to me to be the best President of my
conscious lifetime, being born near the end of of WWII. As many of you gasp in shock wondering if I’m an Obamamaniac, deluded, or just another centrist liberal, please be assured I am not.
My perspective on this country is that it is and always was an
oligarchy composed of shifting Corporatist interests, melded with an elite composed of the very wealthy. As much as I admire Jefferson, Franklin and Washington for instance, they were very wealthy men who were fully concerned in their lifetimes with the perquisites of their wealth and status. We are of course a Republic, with certain democratic features, but have never come close to being a democratic nation.
While I’ve personally known far too many Marxists to be interested in that type of political theory, I nonetheless have certain core beliefs that place me out of the American mainstream politically. I believe in governmental control of corporations; universal health care; the right to have decent shelter; the right to have wherewithal for food and clothing; the right to free education through and beyond college; a truly progressive tax system; the Bill of Rights and the imperative need for a legal system that is fair to everyone; the end of of the concept of American hegemony, prejudice (racial/ethnic and sexual) and a humane foreign policy. That was not in any particular order of importance and certain not all of what I believe in.
I offer the foregoing as examples of what I’m for. All of the above I believe are concepts worth struggling for, but none of them individually, or in toto are in the least mainstream with more than perhaps 25% of all Americans. I’m not naive and know that the reason for this low figure is the result of ongoing propaganda that blinds our citizens to what is really going on. Given that I believe this is the state of affair I never expected President Obama, or anyone else to come close to what I would call ideal and in fact I would expect anyone who is elected in the current political clime of America, to be a disappointment to people who share my beliefs. That’s the reality.
I don’t preach despair though. I believe in commitment to healing my country and the world. I know that for real change to occur it has to be incremental and only can come about when a majority of the people want it. The task for me and those of similar beliefs is to try to not educate people, because that pre-supposes our own infallibility, but to get people to try to think independently and iconoclastically. This is an age old struggle that will not be resolved in our lifetimes and yet it is a cause to believe in.
Given that, President Obama has checked some of the faux conservative excesses and is trying to move positively in some areas that are of most concern. People are out of work.
People lack adequate health care. People are losing their homes. Until you check the emergent nature of this for most people, you will not change their perspective. To paraphrase a quote I used earlier in another thread and with respects to the writer of “The Americanization of Emily.”
God save us from the ideologues of the world, because they are the ones who in their demand for political purity, kill the momentum of the movement.
This is not said to pick a fight, so please don’t take it that way. Several people on this blog believe I never liked Obama which is true and that I never considered voting for him, which is not true.
I asked the people I trusted why they were voting for him and I listened. I took what they said seriously. On this blog I asked rafflaw this question because I had come to trust his judgement through reading his posts. Beyond that, the many other people who write here and who’s opinion I value, I read with an open heart and mind. JT was pro-Obama as were most others, except trolls of course. and I honestly considered what everyone wrote. The person I trust most in this world, my husband, voted for Obama. I kept asking questions, reading, looking things up and I just couldn’t shake my fears that Obama would be exactly the kind of president he is. The imperial and lawless president was in his voting record and his every action. The last straw for me was when the tide turned against Hillary and the defense/mercenary companies started pouring all their money into his campaign.
Like Gyges (and I’m guessing almost everyone else here), McCain/Palin were out of the question. But I could never get my questions about Obama answered in a way that made sense. I just could not ceed my conscience to him and vote for him.
I’m with BuehlahMan. We should stop thinking “we the people” can win in an election between evil and less evil. We are the problem and we have got to make a better choice in the future. Continuing to do the same thing and believing there will be a different outcome is really not thinking very clearly (a bad paraphrase). In the meantime we must figure out a way to make the current crew accountable to the law and the people. If we don’t, we won’t have to worry about any more elections.
It is only a lost cause because we end up
faced with the choice of voting either for someone we hoped would do the right thing, someone we knew wouldn’t, and a whole group of people who stood no chance of getting elected.
As long as America believes that (and Gyges is correct in that assessment… which is heavily “taught” us by the very ones we know are screwing us).
I would say that if everyone that has told me those sentiments had actually voted their conscience and against the other reasons, then there would have been a landslide for the alternative candidate. At the very least, it may have been a 4 or 5 way race (which is absolutely fine by me).
But no, we let them mindfuck us into “voting for the lessor of two evils”.
When we allow the Corporate Party (which includes both DemoRATS and reTHUGlicans) to control the election process and don’t vote their sorry asses out, then we find ourselves in the same, tired old GroundHog Day over and over again.
We are the problem.
BuelahMan, you should also know that I voted for George McGovern, so I’m not totally against committing to lost causes.
Buelah, et al.
Look at how heavily the game is rigged for the two established parties: There’s the way the press covers the two “major” parties vs. “third party candidates;” There’s ability of the two parties to pump so much money into the race to make it impossible for any third group to compete; and the fact that there isn’t a voter around that can remember when the choices weren’t R or D. All this gives us the example of Buddha (and myself), who was realistically faced with the choice of voting either for someone we hoped would do the right thing, someone we knew wouldn’t, and a whole group of people who stood no chance of getting elected. The outcome only reinforced the two party entrenchment.
So how do we change that?
You dirty old man, you.
LOL
Hay, BuelahMan,
You crafty ol’ cyber-Hick, y’all got ‘nother hit offin’ yur website a’sendin’ me thar to decifer whut “FLILF” mint. Hit warn’t whut I thot hit wuz tho.
Dat’ yeller summer squash ya growed and cooked up a mess of shore looked like sum fine vittles. Fried yellow summer squash covered in corn pone batter is a southern favorite of mine.
I think Kucinich should run under the ELF party, as he does look like an elf– he should go with it. This could be the Economic Liberation Front or the Economic and Legal Freedom Party! One way of dealing with lack of “star power” is to grab onto something about yourself and laugh at it. But it’s no joke that we need economic and legal freedom in this nation of tyranny. We need it very badly.
Ahhh
My favorite FLILF
http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/flilf-not-flilf/
Mike,
I agree. Democrats have long ago left “the Left”. I speak often of the Singular Party with two schisms dependent upon the wedge issues to appease the weak Americans who believe it MUST be a two party system. They believe it because these two parties tell them to believe it, in lieu of all the obvious detriment to that purpose.
I didn’t choose Kucinich because he was a Democrat (as a matter of fact, that was an obstacle with me he had to overcome). So, in response to your issue 1: it is America who reaps the adversity and chaos of playing the Two party game. If more would snap out of it, those parties would be forced to actually merge or disband. The reTHUGlicans are a breath away, anyway.
2: it is difficult when even your own party is fighting against you with as much heart as they fight against the “opposite” party. My biggest complaint to Kucinich was that there was, in fact, disorganization. There were times I could not send money because the website had problems. That could be improved, however, with the backing of his party he could excel (which will never happen). So, I wrote the article in Nov 07 saying that he and Paul should run Independent. Would he have won? Dunno, but I bet it would have been a three way race, had they done it.
3: Sad. America is sad. From what I have seen of recent “stars” in politics, they virtually end up all as crooks and liars. But, they were certainly deemed “stars”.
America must wake up.
This is one reason why i bother. If I didn’t think I could work to convince more and educate those about the realities facing us, I wouldn’t waste my time. Hopefully the more people will be willing to see the third party guy (like Nader: whom I eventually worked to elect after Dennis left the race).
Mike A.,
1) You know everything is in how you present it, counselor. From a campaigning standpoint, this is an addressable issue. I’m not saying it’s not an issue either, just that it’s addressable.
2) Lack of organization is an issue. Correctable, but the question is at what cost? Would he have to sell out to get the money to finance an adequate organization for the task of national politics? It was and is a concern.
3) This is, unfortunately, I have to agree is Kucinich’s Achilles Heel. Sad. Not for him but rather for our patently superficial society as a whole. Democracy at its best is a marketplace of ideas. He’s got those in abundance. As far as looks go, eh, yeah, his wife got all them all.
Beulahman, I think Kucinich is very well qualified, but I believe there are several reasons why he could not be elected:
1. His views are too far left for most mainstream Democrats. That is one of the reasons he has not done well in primaries. The fact that he is well respected by many regulars on this site should tell you that.
2. He has never been able to develop a broadly based national organization to support his candidacy.
3. He doesn’t have any star power. I know that sounds cheap and trivial, and it is, but his stature and personality have hampered his ability grab the public’s imagination.
Those are the regrettable facts.
@eniobob:
This is about as much “change” as I can stand.
Well folks let me throw this headline at you:
“Obama blocks list of visitors to White House
Taking Bush’s position, administration denies msnbc.com request for logs”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31373407/ns/politics-white_house/
However, his chances of being elected president are probably not much greater than mine, which means not a chance.
And why do you suppose that is?
BTW: I find a Wiki link to Kucinich quite easily, not so much for any “Mike Appleton”.
Methinks that you stand far less a chance at getting elected POTUS than Kucinich. However, I seem to remember he was on the ticket and I have yet to see a Mike Appleton.
Do you think that he is unqualified? What makes you believe that statement you made?
The post “Senatorial Privilege? Sen. Dick Durbin Cashed Out His Stocks and Shares After Meeting With Paulson and Bernanke on Economic Crisis” and the comments on the post are classic examples of why some people never let facts never get in the way of their opinions.
Here are some basic facts:
On or about September 1, 2008 BRK.B went above the 50 day moving average. At about the same time the DOW, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 went below the 50 day moving average. So what Durbin did seemed prudent at the time based on these facts.
Of course if Durbin still holds BRK.B it is likely that what he did has not worked out so well. BRK.B is down significantly more than the DOW, NASDAQ, and S& P 500 since mid-September 2008.
I’ve admired Dennis Kucinich since he was first elected as mayor of Cleveland at what, 26? However, his chances of being elected president are probably not much greater than mine, which means not a chance.
Obama is very effective as Lottakatz said, but to what end?
Effective at what, per se?
He is an extremely effective liar and actor. He is terrifically effective as an Imperialist. He is wonderfully effective at garnering the vote (with the complicit media’s assistance and unequaled ability to provide bullshit for their listener’s to brainwash themselves with). He is magnificent in his ability to protect the war crimes of his predecessor and in laying further groundwork for the ultimate theft of the American public to benefit the Bankers. He is the ultimate Zionistic protectorate and flip-flopper on the Palestinian issue.
He is not an effective leader for the pains and ailments that plague the USofA. He is instrumental in the pain and will contribute even more in his lackadaisical kowtowing to Corporations.
He is an opportunist of the highest order.
And the American Sheople may now say, “Amen!”
Buddha,
I agree with you that Kucinich would put up a fight and do the right things. Obama is very effective as Lottakatz said, but to what end?
lotta,
I agree the obstructionists in Congress would have tried to Carter him, but I think Kucinich has something Carter didn’t: a stomach for a fight. I also think his first move would have been to clean house at DOJ and sick the meanest AG he could find on the traitors and thus removing him from some of the fray. We don’t need warm fuzzies about the tools in DC to fix this country. We need the criminals who broke it to go to prison. Obama has one chance to fix this, which it looks like he’s tossing out the window in fantastic sell out fashion. Like I said, I voted for him because the choice was another open fascist working for War Inc., but I do not trust Obama to do the right thing anymore. He had the qualifications to know what needed to be done, but so far he’s shown himself to have no spine at all when it comes to the Bush Crime Family. The good news is that Obama showing he’s just another K St. Whore is that next cycle there will be more heat than ever for third party action. I’ll say this too. If Prof. Turley were to show interest in forming a third party based on upholding Constitutional principles to field candidates in not just national but local elections against incumbents from either craptastic party we have to deal with now, I’ll volunteer today. R. D. What’s the damn difference? One is owned by Halliburton and Exxon and the other is owned by the insurance lobby. Screw ’em both and the lobbyist graft they rode in on. We voted for change and we didn’t get it? Well, then maybe it’s time to force change down Washington’s greedy gullet. I’m about all out of patience with those criminal egoistic children. It’s time to administer a spanking.
This is important. If you are able to make calls on this it would help. It’s one piece of corruption we may be able to prevent. This involves the cover up of war funding, WH and Congressional pressure on new House members to do as they are told and an agreement to keep hidden the pictures of torture Obama refuses to release. Glenn Greenwald has a link to the Congresspeople’s phone numbers at the end of his entry yesterday.
————————————————————–
“Will 39 Democrats Stand Up to Stop the War Funding?
The current battle over supplemental war funding will clearly reveal exactly how many Democrats actually oppose these wars. Where does your Representative stand?
By Jeremy Scahill
The White House and the Democratic Congressional Leadership are playing a very dirty game in their effort to ram through supplemental funding for the escalating US war in Afghanistan and continued occupation of Iraq. In the crosshairs of the big guns at the White House and on Capitol Hill are anti-war freshmen legislators and the movement to hold those responsible for torture accountable…
Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, a leader of the antiwar Democrats, said the White House is threatening to withdraw support from freshmen who oppose the bill, saying “you’ll never hear from us again.”
She said the House leadership also is targeting the freshmen.
“It’s really hard for the freshmen,” she said. “Nancy’s pretty powerful.”…
The current battle over war funding has brought with it a couple of high-stakes actions, which have threatened passage of the bill. Many Democrats were up in arms about an amendment sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham that would have blocked the release of photos depicting US abuse of prisoners (which the White House “actively” supported. Facing warnings that the provision could derail the funding package, the White House stepped in, deploying Rahm Emanuel to the Hill to convince legislators to drop the amendment, while at the same time pledging that Obama would use his authority to continue to fight the release of more photos:
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel ‘rushed’ to Capitol Hill and prevailed upon Senate Democrats to remove the torture photo measure in exchange for an explicit White House promise that it would use all means at its disposal to block the photos’ release. Obama also issued a letter to Congress assuring it he would support separate legislation to suppress the photos, if necessary, and imploring it to speed passage of the war-spending bill. The rider would “unnecessarily complicate the essential objective of supporting the troops,” Obama wrote.”
http://rebelreports.com/