Today I got another shameless fundraising email from a Senate Democrat doing Wall Street's bidding-- Barbara Boxer, disgracing herself as she hobbles out the door by referring to reactionary "ex"-Republican, Patrick Murphy, as a "bold progressive" and asking people who trust her to contribute to his right-wing campaign. Maybe "bold-faced liar" would have been more precise. Until Murphy realized he would have to run against Grayson in a primary-- a Democratic primary-- he regularly voted with the GOP on almost every crucial roll call. He had the 4th worst voting record among Democrats, having carried water for the banksters for his whole time in Congress, while voting for oil drilling off Florida's pristine beaches, to undermine and wreck the Affordable Care Act, for the Keystone XL Pipeline 6 times-- as well as for a bizarre and unconstitutional GOP law to remove President Obama from the decision-making process-- and even to authorize the Benghazi witch hunt against Hillary Clinton. Boehner had come to depend on Patrick Murphy so he could say his agenda was "bipartisan," meaning supported by Republicans + Patrick Murphy and a few mangy Blue Dogs.Then someone let Murphy know that a primary is different from a general election and that he had to at least appear a little like a Democrat. So now he's just the 12th worst Democrat in the House. What a bargain! Bold progressive, my ass!This morning Progressive Democrats of Florida sent out a letter to its members pointing out that Patrick Murphy "stands somewhere different each and every day. First, he was for improving mass transportation by supporting a high speed rail project crucial to moving Florida forward. Then, after his 'Daddy Warbucks' lost a big construction contract related to the project, Murphy was all of a sudden against it. He was a Republican mega-donor, before being elected to Congress as a Democrat and espousing his 'progressive' credentials. According to the East Orlando Post, a top staffer for John Boehner called him a Republican at heart."That same Boehner staffer referred to Murphy as one of the GOP House leadership's "best assets on the other side of the aisle." And his support for All Aboard Florida's high speed rail project and then his opposition was all based on his family business, the corrupt Coast Construction Group which does business with Trumpf and bankrolls Murphy's political campaigns ($250,000 to his SuperPAC, American Sunrise in 2012, $76,750 to his campaign directly that year and another $50,300 to his campaign directly last year.) Coast Construction Group-- and Muphy's parents-- have been buying endorsements for Murphy's campaigns from transactional politicians like Alcee Hastings, Frederica Wilson, Ami Bera, Sean Patrick Maloney and a gaggle of disreputable and corrupt DCCC candidates who were all defeated in 2014 after their parents were caught illegally trading maxed-out contributions.How do Democrats and progressives start to reclaim the Democratic Party from the buckets of slime like Steve Israel, Chuck Schumer and Patrick Murphy? By never contributing to any of the party committees-- the DCCC, the DSCC or the DNC-- or their front groups, like the alluringly-named EndCitizensUnited, and by contributing directly to progressive candidates with progressive records-- like these four-- not corrupt conservative candidates useful idiots like Barbara Boxer are told to fundraise for. By the way, I called her office to find out if she knew anything about Murphy's ethics or voting record and i was told to send my opinion to bulletinfeedback@boxer.senate.gov/How about we end the night on a more positive note? Did you read Bernie's OpEd in the NY Times this morning? "Wall Street," he reminds us, "is still out of control." And that would not be the case without the active connivance of Wall Street politicians-- whether we're talking about Paul Ryan ($5,519,391), Mitch McConnell ($11,435,701), Marco Rubio ($5,076,359) and Ted Cruz ($4,134,237) on one side of the aisle or about Chuck Schumer ($23,538,638), Patrick Murphy ($2,388,998) and Hillary Clinton ($36,846,987) on the side of the aisle that is supposed to be protecting us from predatory banksters, not enabling them the way the Republicans do.
Seven years ago, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department bailed out the largest financial institutions in this country because they were considered too big to fail. But almost every one is bigger today than it was before the bailout. If any were to fail again, taxpayers could be on the hook for another bailout, perhaps a larger one this time.To rein in Wall Street, we should begin by reforming the Federal Reserve, which oversees financial institutions and which uses monetary policy to maintain price stability and full employment. Unfortunately, an institution that was created to serve all Americans has been hijacked by the very bankers it regulates.The recent decision by the Fed to raise interest rates is the latest example of the rigged economic system. Big bankers and their supporters in Congress have been telling us for years that runaway inflation is just around the corner. They have been dead wrong each time. Raising interest rates now is a disaster for small business owners who need loans to hire more workers and Americans who need more jobs and higher wages. As a rule, the Fed should not raise interest rates until unemployment is lower than 4 percent. Raising rates must be done only as a last resort-- not to fight phantom inflation.What went wrong at the Fed? The chief executives of some of the largest banks in America are allowed to serve on its boards. During the Wall Street crisis of 2007, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, served on the New York Fed’s board of directors while his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Next year, four of the 12 presidents at the regional Federal Reserve Banks will be former executives from one firm: Goldman Sachs.These are clear conflicts of interest, the kind that would not be allowed at other agencies. We would not tolerate the head of Exxon Mobil running the Environmental Protection Agency. We don’t allow the Federal Communications Commission to be dominated by Verizon executives. And we should not allow big bank executives to serve on the boards of the main agency in charge of regulating financial institutions.If I were elected president, the foxes would no longer guard the henhouse. To ensure the safety and soundness of our banking system, we need to fundamentally restructure the Fed’s governance system to eliminate conflicts of interest. Board members should be nominated by the president and chosen by the Senate. Banking industry executives must no longer be allowed to serve on the Fed’s boards and to handpick its members and staff. Board positions should instead include representatives from all walks of life-- including labor, consumers, homeowners, urban residents, farmers and small businesses....Financial reforms must not stop with the central bank. We must reinstate Glass-Steagall and break up the too-big-to-fail financial institutions that threaten our economy. But we need to start with fundamental change. The sad reality is that the Federal Reserve doesn’t regulate Wall Street; Wall Street regulates the Fed. It’s time to make banking work for the productive economy and for all Americans, not just a handful of wealthy speculators. And it begins by making the Federal Reserve a more democratic institution, one that is responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans rather than the billionaires on Wall Street.
That's just one crucial issue that differentiates Bernie from the establishment candidates like Rubio, Cruz and Hillary. Today he pointed out another important one for progressives to remember: "I want to talk with you about one of the very real differences between Secretary Clinton and me that surfaced during last weekend's debate, and that is our approach to health care in this country," he wrote to supporters. "I was, and all progressives should be, deeply disappointed in some of her attacks on a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system. The health insurance lobbyists and big pharmaceutical companies try to make "national health care" sound scary. It is not. In fact, a large single-payer system already exists in the United States. It's called Medicare and the people enrolled give it high marks. More importantly, it has succeeded in providing near-universal coverage to Americans over age 65 in a very cost-effective manner..."[A] Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system will expand employment by lifting a major financial weight off of the businesses burdened by employee health expenses. And for the millions of Americans who are currently in jobs they don't like but must stay put because of health care access, they would be free to explore more productive opportunities as they desire. So, what is stopping us from guaranteeing free, quality health care as a basic fundamental right for all Americans? I believe the answer ties into campaign finance reform. The truth is, the insurance companies and the drug companies are bribing the United States Congress."You can contribute to Bernie's campaign here if you believe in his vision for a more equitable America.