House Financial Services Committee

Republicans and "Democrats" from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party are drawn to the House Financiall Services Committee like flies to shit. It's the congressional honeypot through which millions and millions of dollars in bribes moves from Wall Street into the political system every year. The banksters and their lobbyists pay big money to the members of the committee for their... cooperation.

At a meeting of Democratic thought leaders earlier in the week, Elizabeth Warren posed a rhetorical question "Do you get the feeling that if Bernie Madoff weren’t in prison he’d be in charge of the SEC right now?" I wonder if New Dem chairman and former Goldman-Sachs banker Jim Himes was in the room, though I doubt it, since he spends so much of his spare time shuffling from fundraiser to fundraiser.

While everyone was preoccupied with the Republican circus around TrumpCare yesterday, Congress' most corrupt committee, House Financial Services, took another step toward gutting the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In fact, what they did yesterday would even gut some protections that were in placer before the Great Recession. The votes were basically along party lines to send Hensarling's Wall Street lobbyist-written legislation to the full House.

Congress has written the bribery laws in such a way as to exclude their own habitual behavior of taking corporate bribes. There are many examples but one that always stands out is how members of congress relate to the predatory payday lenders whose business model is ripping off the public Congress is supposed to be protecting.

2 of the banksters most profitable investments in Congress-- Emanuel and HimesIf you think Trump has gone overboard in draining the swamp and what DC needs is more banksters in public office, good news: banksters and lobbyists are launching an effort to train banksters who want to run for state or federal office.

Are you stunned to see Trump's sinking poll numbers? You should be. A newly elected president has never had a reaction from the country like his. His first week in office and 35% of Americans already thought he should be impeached. That rose to 40% last week and then 46% this week!

Last week, we predicted that Pelosi would appoint the biggest Wall Street shill among the new freshmen, Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), to the biggest fount of congressional corruption, the House Financial Services Committee.

Perhaps you were angry that Obama's Justice Department never went after Wall Street elites. I sure was. Last year David Sirota did a powerful piece for International Business Times about how prosecution for white collar crimes was at a 20-year low-- although not because there was less of that kind of crime.

I spent yesterday morning watching-- and tweeting about-- the House Financial Services Committee "examination" of Wells Fargo's crooked CEO John Stumpf. Exasperating! Without an Elizabeth Warren or an Alan Grayson, these kinds of hearings don't shed much light on anything.

Sleaze bag Sean Duffy is chair of the Financial Services' Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations-- Wells Fargo singled him out for this year's biggest bribe.