Russ Feingold's Defiance Irks Liberals

(I applaud him! Way to go, Russ! The Financial reform bill is a joke, just like the healthcare reform bill. Obama takes credit for "legislative victories" in which "we the people" are the ones screwed.--jef)


Tuesday, July 13, 2010 by Politico.com
by Carrie Budoff Brown

He's been a hero to liberals for voting against big banks, the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.

But Sen. Russ Feingold's decision to become the only Democratic vote against Wall Street reform has left many questioning his strategy.

Progressives figured the Wisconsin Democrat would be first in line to sign on to the financial regulatory overhaul. Instead, he's been stubbornly, defiantly opposed to the legislation - Feingold calls it a cave-in to Wall Street - almost single-handedly delaying the final vote and denying, at least temporarily, President Barack Obama's second legislative triumph.

But what really galls some on the left is that Feingold's resistance opened the door for deal making - and Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown walked right through, making Brown the kingmaker on the bill that many on the left thought Feingold could have been.

"If he had said loudly and clearly during recent conference negotiations that he'd vote yes if, and only if, the strongest version of the Lincoln proposal and ‘Volcker rule' were in the final bill, it would have made Scott Brown irrelevant and dramatically changed the negotiations," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, referring to Sen. Blanche Lincoln's derivatives crackdown and former Fed chief Paul Volcker's limits on risky bank investments.

"Instead, he remained silent, let the bill get watered down and then spoke out after the negotiations were over. That's not bold; it's weak and unstrategic - and it helped Wall Street rip off the public to the tune of billions in the future," Green said.

Brown's sway over the bill was illustrated again Monday when he announced he would vote yes, allowing Democrats to finally get the 60 votes they need to pass the landmark legislation - but not before Democrats watered down key parts of the bill to Brown's liking, including allowing banks to do a small bit of trading with their own funds.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) also announced that she, too, would support the bill - potentially clearing the way for a vote as early as this week.

In an interview Monday, Feingold remained unapologetic and took issue with claims that he didn't do enough.

At the outset of the floor debate, he detailed his test for this legislation: whether it would prevent another financial crisis. He co-sponsored five amendments that he said would have addressed his issues, namely restoring Glass-Steagall Act firewalls between commercial and investment banking and restricting banks from becoming so big that they threaten the financial system.

And Feingold said that he spoke several times with administration officials, Senate leaders and members of the conference committee, but at no time did they show any interest in moving closer to his position. Once it became clear that his two biggest issues had no shot in the Senate, he said he couldn't get to "yes."

Feingold said criticism of him as less than involved is generated by those within the "axis between Wall Street and Washington, and I'm not part of that axis."

"I don't know what they are talking about," Feingold said. "Why would I try to work with people who are trying to kill the things that I think are most important? They were asking me to cut a deal that was against the interests of the American people and the people of Wisconsin."

To be sure, some progressives cheered Feingold for stating what one called "inconvenient truths" about the legislation. And Feingold is known as a contrarian who has bucked his party at times. Even if he had engaged more vigorously in the negotiations, his demands might have alienated moderates.

But his opposition to the Wall Street reform legislation struck some of his allies as a step too far and caught off-guard even those well acquainted with his against-the-grain voting patterns.

"There wasn't a sense of it early on that he should be one of the targets," said Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin and longtime observer of Feingold. "I really don't think he developed into a Tier One target where people thought he was a problem until very late in the process. On the national level, they were assuming he would come around."

He never did - and now, he has come to embody Democrats' divided emotions over the bill. "A lot of us want to love Russ Feingold, but he consistently shows lackluster ability to use smart leverage in important policy fights like health care and Wall Street reform," Green said.

The Wall Street bill reinforced Feingold's standing as a Washington irritant, but back in Wisconsin, he's banking on that reputation to pull him through what is turning into a tough reelection.

Feingold released a 60-second radio ad Tuesday, positioning himself as a scourge of special interests and party leaders.

"I continue to be an independent voice who is tough on government spending and will stand up to both political parties," he said in the commercial. "Maybe I won't make a lot of new friends, but at least you will have one fighting for you and future generations."

One Democratic Senate aide said Feingold should have made more of a public push to fix the bill. Sure, he signed on to the amendments most wanted by liberals, but he didn't put any work into building support for them, the aide said.

Because of his lower profile, some Democrats were shocked when he was one of only two Democrats to oppose moving the bill to final passage in May after three weeks of debate.

His criticism irked colleagues, who objected to his claim that the bill failed to address the threat posed by "too big to fail" banks. Annoyance with Feingold came to a head during one of the Senate votes, when Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) confronted him on the floor, setting off an animated discussion over his public statements.

"He very much wanted me to accept the idea that this bill was significant on the issues I care about," Feingold said. "I said it didn't get to the core of the problem."

Green said his group offered "many times" to meet with Feingold aides, to no avail, creating a stark contrast with the relationship forged with Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who led efforts to strengthen the Volcker rule.

As someone who has opposed interstate banking, the bank deregulation in 1999 and the 2008 bank bailout, Feingold said, "I don't really have to put up with people who say I haven't been involved in this."

Kraig, the Wisconsin operative, said Feingold was being Feingold. His approach to the bill carried the hallmarks of his leadership style: He doesn't take up the role of backroom deal maker. Instead, he makes an assessment about a bill on its merits, and if lawmakers want to get his vote, they have to meet his standards.

"It's not like he is constantly voting against something that is not perfect," Kraig said. "But when he does make a decision and digs in, he is hard to persuade."

Opposition to HR 3590 is Not Only Drawn Down Partisan Lines

by spiderlegs

OK, I'm getting pretty sick of the lazy classification of all opposition to the Health Care Reform Bill as strictly Right WIngers and Tea Baggers. Many, many Progressives are against the bill, and many left leaning independents who bailed on the Corporatist Democratic Party in the past for being puppets of the corporate power structure like their Republican counterparts are.

I oppose this bill not because of bullshit rhetoric like "socialist" or any other reactionary extreme term meant solely to provoke an emotional reaction.

See, I've read the bill. I've seen all the little loopholes in it that basically water down or even reverse its so called "reform" measures. In fact, I was angered to see that this bill actually does even more for the corporate health insurance providers than the existing system. There are so many corporate perks, you sit there wondering why they didn't do a better job of trying to hide them. The answer being of course, "no one's gonna read the damn thing!"

I severed my ties with the Democratic Party a decade ago--basically after the capitulation of 2000. I still have argued for their side in certain debates--mainly against the war in Iraq, and many other George W. Bush policy blunders. But once away from the Dems, it became easy to see they were just as controlled by the corporations as the Republicans are, except the GOP doesn't try and hide it. They make it plainly clear that their mouths are on the phalli of the corporations, and they swallow, too.

But the Democrats have always tried to hide it, tried to make it seem like they were the party of the people, when they are the party for the lawyers and investment bankers. In truth, both parties try and put up this front like they are so diametrically opposed to each other, that it's funny to watch them go through their acts.

But they have the same bosses. They legislate with the same end results and bottom lines. That's why this health care bill is a corporate blow job with a reach around. And anyone who says it's good for the people is spouting talking points without having read it, or they favor corporate rule, I guess.

But please understand, oh readers, that opposition to the bill is not just from conservatives, tea baggers, Republicans, and the like. Progressives, Libertarians, Green Party members, Independents, and here's the funniest part: Socialists are against this bill. I have two friends who claim membership to the Socialist Party, and both of them hate the bill, too. There is very little in it that can be considered socialist, and no more socialist than the post office or education system.

The merging of corporate and government administration is more accurately termed fascist, but the Tea Baggers latched on to "Socialist" because it's "scary." Thinking they could hearken back to McCarthyism days, they tried to pull another "red scare" that wasn't necessary: the bill on its own is scary enough. Any form of corporate control is scary because corporations are much more evil and corrupt than almost any government. There's a saying that if you left a corporation under a jar left to go about its business without intervention, when you came back after a time, you'd find 12 really fat people sitting around a table with mouths open like baby birds. See, they had eaten everything (consumed all the resources), were still hungry (still greedy for more profits), and now they're begging for more food (asking the govt for a bailout).

It is my opinion that the corporate way of administration is inherently corrupt. It bastardizes the concept of free market capitalism to the point where corruption and greed are its dominant characteristics, and will always work their way to the forefront and control every aspect of life. Those who work for the corporation have rights under the constitution, but that wasn't enough: they wanted extra rights. So not only did those individuals employed by the corporation have rights, they coerced the courts into giving them even more rights which superceded those of individuals, making the corporate entity infinitely more powerful and influential than the individual. And thus, the beginning of the end of the United States of America.

The end came last January with the SCOTUS Citizens United decision giving the corporations the right to buy political candidates, and influence the legislature with their huge sums of money. Starting this November, there will never be a candidate elected who is not affiliated with corporate interests. Not that there are many now, but they no longer have to pretend.

And then came HR 3590, the corporate health care reform (not!) bill that was written by health care industry lobbyists, serving the interests of the health insurance providers and pharmaceutical corps while the politicians assumed their age old roles of good cop/bad cop, with the Republicans pretending to be outraged by this turn to communism, worse than Communist Russia said one idiot congressman from Texas. This is for our benefit, 'we the people.' The show where the Democrats pretend the bill is for us, and the Republicans pretend to argue in our interest against it, when both sides know how much it benefits their corporate masters and their shareholders when the mandate kicks in. Such theater, and so many of us, the people, are convinced it's real life, that we get caught up in it. And we argue for it or against it, not knowing really what it says or who it favors, really. We watch our legislators, we mimic them "baby killer! baby killer!" and we settle down in our partisan divisions, blindly following someone else's lead.

I say "we" but I don't mean "we." For once, I actually educated myself on a supremely controversial issue, and once I learned how badly in favor of corporate interests this bill was geared to the expense of those who need health care reform (all of us), I had to side with those who believed the bill is a communist plot--not because that's what I believe, but because they were the only ones opposing it vociferously. I heard the voices of other progressives, independents, and those not affiliated with the "right" I listed earlier, join mine in opposition to the bill, but so few noticed that we somehow got lumped in as right wing nut jobs. Those of you who know me personally know that calling me a right wing nut job is probably the most hilarious thing ever. And even though I'm not a Democrat, only a few of my economic views-- a handful of them, to be true--even approach conservative, and they are more along the lines of Goldwater than Reagan or the neocons.

And let me say that even though we lost, and the world's worst health care reform bill was signed into law yesterday, it was a pleasure aligning temporarily with you right wingers for this cause. I think I learned that we as Americans have more in common with each other than the differences we have which we let destroy our unity as a nation. We can come together if we're all willing to listen to each other, and not put personalities and ego ahead of what's best for the country. Philosophically, I've always downplayed bi-partisanship as a gimmick to make legislators look appealing to the common man. But the enemy of my enemy...prevails just fine. If I can be an example of just one thing, it's that all of you people who consider yourselves Republicans or Democrats are being played, lied to, and manipulated for your support. Your parties are the property, employees of, and tools of the corporate ownership of this country, more aptly named the Corporate States of America. Because the only way in which we are united anymore, is that we have the same boss. We are owned by corporate America, the banks, the health industry (pharma, insurance, etc), the food processors, the mainstream media outlets, the telecom corporations who help the NSA spy on us, oil companies, retail chains, and fast food corps. And that's due directly to the Republicans and Democrats, guaranteeing corporate rule for as long as they exist.