Wall Street bailout

Happy Anniversary? This year it will be one full decade since the Wall Street meltdown-- triggered by greed-driven, irresponsible banksters and the politicians who allowed them (for a regular flow of bribes) to get away with murder-- that threw the economy into the Great Recession. Austin Frerick is running for an Iowa congressional seat occupied by a garden variety corrupt conservative incumbent, Wall Street ally David Young.

Looks like I stumbled onto something Saturday-- my use of the term "Bailout Caucus," pissed off some senators. Turns out the polite way of talking about the topic is to refer to the "Bank Lobbyist Act." My bad.

Almost a month ago, Alan Rapaport did a piece for the NY Times, Democrats Add Momentum to G.O.P. Push to Loosen Banking Rules about how conservative Wall Street-friendly Democrats in the Senate are helping Republicans "loosen rules imposed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis."

Today Bernie did incredibly well in Kentucky but just couldn't penetrate the low-info precincts in Louisville and Lexington... not even with all the support he had from low-info precincts in coal country. Hillary, with all her gigantic "advantages," managed to scrape by with the narrowest 212,549 (46.8%) to 210,626 (46.3%) plurality. Bernie's strongest returns came from historic Harlan county in the extreme east of the state where he beat her 62.8% to 25.9%.

by Gaius Publius"I owe almost my entire Wall Street career to the Clintons" (he does mean both). —Wall Street trader Chris Arnade I recently read Joan Walsh's passionate endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and while she speaks for herself, it's obvious that many people feel as she does. It's long past time for a woman to be nominated and long past time for the vicious, sexist and puerile attacks on her to cease.

by Gaius PubliusI can't take credit for this, though I wish I could. David Dayen, who writes at Salon, has been reading Barney Frank's new book Frank and also its reviews. Dayen is one of the most knowledgeable writers on the mortgage and financial crises — both. (Note to readers: It's not a financial crisis if there's no mortgage crisis.

Two rats: Kevin McCarthy and Chuck SchumerElizabeth Warren's clarion calls-- three on the Senate floor this week-- may have been derided by South Carolina closet queen Lindsay Graham (R) as "immature" and "emotional," but they were having their intended effect on their intended audience (which was not South Carolina closet queens on the other side of the aisle).

Last week we took a look at two revealing interviews of Elizabeth Warren, one by Bill Moyers and the other by Steve Inskeep.

Palin's not happy with the Republican Party Establishment-- and she claims she may be ready to bolt and start one of her own. No one represents that Establishment better than Paul Ryan. Ryan's a packaged product, courtesy of Wall Street and Madison Avenue.