Export-Import Bank

More than 80 percent of its business goes to a literal top-ten list of beneficiaries, which also includes GE, Caterpillar, and other large firms that have invested in political connections. This is in direct violation of Ex-Im’s charter, which requires it to give at least 20 percent of the dollar-value of its business to smaller firms.

No amount of bureaucratic tinkering can shield taxpayers from bailouts in the event that bank reserves run dry—as occurred in the 1980s—nor protect American businesses from the disadvantages of the U.S. government subsidizing their foreign competitors.

I don't often get press releases from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but today their chief lobbyist, Bruce Josten, sent me one about how happy they are about the Export-Import Bank reauthorization.

When Mark Pocan (D-WI): said "Politicians too often say one thing but actually do another," he was explaining how magic tricks are like what politicians do in Washington. Few people know that Mark is actually a magician himself and used to do magic shows to put himself through college. Yesterday, though, in the other chamber, Texas' right-wing extremist Ted Cruz went crazy on the floor, accusing his own caucus leader, Mitch McConnell, of lying.A politician lying?

But alas, it's not enough for the merchants of austerity.by KenJune 30, marking as it does the end of the first half of the calendar year, is a popular demarcation point for all sorts of things -- the end of many organizations' fiscal year and the end point for all sorts of other agreements.

Why Washington State senators need the Export-Import Bank to be reauthorizedby Gaius PubliusHouse Democrats, 28 of them, handed Obama and House Republicans a win by passing Fast Track, called Trade Promotion Authority, or TPA, as a stand-alone bill. The bill yoked to it by the Senate — an "assistance for workers" bill called TAA — was cut loose.

Each of these Democrats need to be turned into lobbyists at the earliest opportunity. For three of them, that's January 2017 (click to enlarge and share).

Every now and then, the teabaggers team up with progressives and the two populist wings of their respective parties work together to challenge the grotesquely corrupt Establishment wings of the two Beltway parties.

Once there was a time… when we knew what it meant to be a Democrat. I remember it. It was the party of the working and middle classes, not another party of Big Business and Wall Street. I can't pinpoint the exact change but one inflection point was when George H.W.

The other JebJeb Hensarling-- who has no Democratic opponent in his R+17 suburban Dallas district-- is the chairman of the Financial Services Committee and has accepted $1,121,622 in legalistic bribes (i.e., "campaign contributions") from the financial sector so far this cycle, the 4th most of any Member of Congress.