One of the smarter members of Congress told me this after reading this post today: "Generally speaking, if someone offers you campaign money in order to change a law affecting that certain someone, it’s safe to say that it’s not a change for the better. This basic understanding seems to elude virtually every Member of Congress, in both parties-- but some more than others."Friday morning there was a vote in the House-- not covered by the media at all-- that separated actual Democrats from the New Dems, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. The bill came out of the House Financial Services Committee and was presented for the committee by French Hill of Arkansas. Only one Republican voted against it, former Democrat, Walter Jones (R-NC). H.R.4790, the Volcker Rule Regulatory Harmonization Act, had 3 co-sponsors from the committee, Randy Hultgren (R-IL) and two New Dems who have been bought by Wall Street, Josh Gottheimer (NJ-$868,574 this year) and Bill Foster (IL-$234,785 this year). The bill passed with every Republican but one and with 78 Democrats, primarily New Dems and Blue Dogs-- 300 to 104. 103 Democrats, led by Pelosi voted against it.The Volcker Rule Regulatory Harmonization Act was a top priority for Wall Street this year. Why? After a conference committee with the Senate-- and assuming Trump signs it-- the bill will weaken the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from gambling-- they call it "making speculative investments"-- with their ordinary depositors' money, by exempting banks with less than $10 billion in assets. The bill takes the FDIC out of the regulatory equation and leaves the policing up to the very Wall Street-friendly Federal Reserve. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the chair of the FDIC explained that exempting smaller banks would "open a door" to risky behavior. He said supervisors catch risky trades after they go south, not before: "That is why you have the Volcker rule in the first place."The American Bankers Association, Citigroup and Bank of America were the big players in lobbying to weaken the Volcker Rule-- as the major campaign contributors to the New Dems.Blue America doesn't endorse New Dems. They muddy the Democratic Party brand and make it difficult for voters to understand that there is a difference between the two Beltway parties. At one point, for example, we were leaning towards endorsing Harley Rouda as the best-- if flawed (ex-Republican)-- candidate to take on Dana Rohrabach had already endorsed two other candidates when the New Dems offered them tentative endorsements. One rejected it and she stayed on our endorsement list. The other happily accepted it and-- she's no longer a Blue America candidate. There are no good New Dems. They are the Wall Street wing, the Republican wing. And endorsement of a New Dem means the Republican is so bad that you're holding your nose and openly, consciously embracing a lesser-of-two evils approach.The Congressional Progressive Caucus always had one thing going for it, a thing that enabled it to influence the House Democratic Conference in a progressive direction. They've left that go and have been surpassed in influence-- completely and utterly surpassed-- by the New Dems, now the power center of the Democratic Party. These are the members of the New Dems and their lifetime bribes-- or "contributions" as they prefer to term it-- from the Financial Sector). The bolded names voted with the GOP yesterday to weaken the Volcker Rule. First the New Dems' 9 elected offices
• Jim Himes (CT- $5,979,437)• Suzan DelBene (WA- $705,640)• Derik Kilmer (WA- $823,865)• Jared Polis (CO- $1,039,777)• Terri Sewell (AL- $1,810,721)-absent• Gerry Connolly (VA- $1,212,467)• Ron Kind (WI- $3,045,096)• Kathleen Rice (NY- $1,550,271)• Scott Peters (CA- $1,298,375)• Pete Aguilar (CA- $800,195)• Ami Bera (CA- $1,339,115)• Donald Beyer (VA- $783,581)• Brendan Boyle (PA- $363,247)• Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE- $230,874)• Anthony Brown (MD- $155,108)• Julia Brownley (CA- $561,606)• Cheri Bustos (IL- $844,194)- absent• Salud Carbajal (CA- $433,607)• Tony Cardenas (CA- $691,556)• Andre Carson (IN- $818,084)• Joaquin Castro (TX- $567,658)• Lou Correa (CA- $199,690)• Jim Costa (CA- $1,002,628)• Joe Courtney (CT- $1,229,696)• Charlie Crist (FL- $2,895,457)• Henry Cuellar (TX- $1,391,863)• Susan Davis (CA- $504,546)• John Delaney (MD- $2,349,692)• Val Demings (FL- $308,304)• Eliot Engel (NY- $1,768,101)• Elizabeth Esty (CT- $1,048,648)• Bill Foster (IL- $2,417,863)• Vicente Gonzalez (TX- $172,214• Josh Gottheimer (NJ- $1,839,60)• Colleen Hanabusa (HI- $880,163)• Denny Heck (WA- $1,295,242)• Bill Keating (MA- $518,403)• Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL- $782,588)• Annie Kuster (NH- $1,259,136)• Rick Larsen (WA- $991,852)• Brenda Lawrence (MI- $289,825)• Al Lawson (FL- $151,100)• Sean Patrick Maloney (NY- $2,614,948)• Donald McEachin (VA- $95,119)• Gregory Meeks (NY- $3,356,088)• Seth Moulton (MA- $1,516,542)• Stephanie Murphy (FL- $273,423)• Donald Norcross (NJ- $854,512)• Tom O'Halleran (AZ- $276,004)• Beto O'Rourke (TX- $840,145)• Ed Perlmutter (CO- $3,776,273)• Mike Quigley (IL- $936,529)• Cedric Richmond (LA- $520,800)• Raul Ruiz (CA- $710,932)• Adam Schiff (CA- $1,452,221)• Brad Schneider (IL- $1,847,646)• Kurt Schrader (OR- $889,840)• David Scott (GA- $3,059,594)- absent• Kyrsten Sinema (AZ- $2,812,394)• Adam Smith (WA- $1,087,860)• Darren Soto (FL- $186,115)• Tom Suozzi (NY- $696,402)• Norma Torres (CA- $132,880)• Juan Vargas (CA- $1,502,865)• Marc Veasey (TX- $520,706)• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL- $2,344,886)
Takeaway: the New Dems are the heart and soul of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. And they're taking over. Joe Crowley is trying to vote like a Democrat lately so he can slip into the speaker's chair but he was the chair of the New Dem caucus for many years and still-- along with another "non-member," Steny Hoyer-- calls the shots there. Tim Canova is the independent progressive South Florida law professor running for the seat Wasserman Schultz has been occupying-- and running her scams through-- for far too long. This morning, he told us that "Debbie Wasserman Schultz claims to be fighting for a progressive agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth. She’s been swimming in corporate money for years and shamelessly pushing corporate interests in Congress. For instance, she’s taken millions of dollars from big Wall Street banks, payday lenders and other financial institutions. In return, she shills for payday lenders and votes to deregulate Wall Street banks, most recently voting to exempt banks with less than $10 billion in assets from the Volcker Rule, a key provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, that seeks to prevent banks from gambling with their depositors’ money. In the past, Wasserman Schultz has pushed a Republican bill to prevent the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from regulating predatory payday lending-- now part of the Trump administration’s agenda for financial deregulation. Ask Wasserman Schultz about progressive alternatives to payday lending-- such as community banking, public banking, postal banking-- and she will have no idea what you’re talking about. And that’s because it’s not part of the agenda of her Wall Street cronies."There were only 14 New Dems who voted against the bill many of them breaking with Wall Street out of fear of primaries by real Democrats-- like Darren Soto who will soon be fighting progressive champion Alan Grayson for his political life-- or for similar political considerations. As for the future... the DCCC is not recruiting good government reformers like Canova. No way! Instead it is fanatically recruiting corrupt New Dems like Wasserman Schultz as Democratic candidates this cycle, doing all they can to crush independent-minded progressives.
