Another GOP Senator Chooses Principle Over Re-election...

[Sue U]

Darren, I don't understand what you're talking about here:

You're ignoring the generations of culture, rightly or wrongly, that effected the disruption we're seeing. ... The tea party in WV was mostly the elderly retirees that were pissed off enough to go to meetings rather play bingo at senior centers. Few are internet adept. ... Add in the faithful generations of lever pulling Democrats that crossed over and there was a sea change. Blame the media/PR all you want, good or bad, change happened.

What are "the generations of culture"? What were the elderly retirees "pissed off enough" about? Are you talking about the fact that the President was a black man? What does being "internet adept" have to do with it?

Trump will go down as a marketing genius that took lemons and made lemonade.

Trump is not a marketing genius; he merely proves the rule that you can fool some of the people all of the time. Anyone who had any familiarity with his track record in business in NY and NJ over the past 30 years could have told you that. His M.O. has always been to leverage the hell out of a deal, take the skimmable cash, stiff the contractors and walk away, leaving the investors holding the bag.

Even rodeo clowns have an important job to do. Don't let the tomfoolery deceive you.

I don't disagree; as much as they hate Trump personally for his lack of discipline, his narcissism, his vulgarity and his complete absence of principle, the moneyed interests behind the Tea Party brand are perfectly willing to use him as tool in implementing their agenda. He wasn't their candidate and he's far from ideal, but he is fundamentally aligned with their views.

IMO, Trump mobilized what was called the silent majority in the past.

Well, except for the actual fact that the majority of voters voted for Hillary Clinton. By a margin of about 3 million.

When the Democrats pulled the slicky in California to stop Saunders they lost the future of the party.

Bernie Sanders is not the future of the Democratic Party. Hell, he's not even a Democrat. He was never going to win the nomination, and he and everyone else knew it. The only people "resentful" about his loss are ideological purity drones who either don't understand or don't care how a major political party actually works.

When Trump stumbled in Alabama, it should be clear that the base that came together to elect Trump, is still active.

Trump's "loss" in the Strange-Moore battle has more to do with the frankly bizarre Dominionist and homophobic peculiarities of the Alabama GOP base. To the extent Steve Bannon robustly backed Moore -- and that Trump was clearly cowed by it (that last campaign appearance was excruciating) -- you can see where the power actually lies.

[Big RR]

but he is fundamentally aligned with their views

That's where you lose me Sue; I don't see Trump as fundamentally aligned with anything. He has no agenda or politics other than to rouse the rabble with his antics, and has no direction he is heading; he just likes to be the center of attention and, like the anorexic who can't be too thin, he can't get enough of it. Personally, I don't think he has the intelligence to understand and embrace a political agenda, but even if he does, he has no interest in developing or understanding one.

[Sue U]

I think Trump does have some views, including not paying taxes and not being restricted by any regulation in conducting business (e.g., consumer protection, environmental protection, fair labor standards, occupational safety & health, minimum wage, foreign corrupt practices, etc.). And sure, he's mostly interested in how those things apply to him. Like I said, he wasn't the ideal candidate for the Kochs/Olins/Scaifes/Mercers/Adelsons of the world, but they'll work with what they've got.

[Big RR]

I think, to the extent he has any such views, they are not his own but are fed to him by his "underlings" who in reality run his businesses, and he is not wedded to them. For example, if he really wanted tax reform, he wouldn't alienate the very people in Congress who could make it happen, but since he really only cares about being the center of attention, he continues to alienate them. Face it, this is a guy born with a silver foot in his mouth who never had to work a day in his life or worry about anything, and so all he cares about is to promote himself.

[Econoline]

• • Here's What Happened Among Republicans a Few Hours After Jeff Flake's Speech
    BY CHARLES P. PIERCE | OCT 25, 2017

  You would have thought that Senator Jeff Flake would have basked a little longer in the applause he got for scarpering out of the Senate before he got around to the business of emptying his words of any significant meaning they ever had. Instead, Flake—along with fellow brave truth-tellers Bob Corker, Ben Sasse and, significantly, John McCain—joined with every other Republican (including Mike Pence, The Great Tiebreaker) to arrange for the screwing of countless Americans and their families.
  
  In the dead of Tuesday night, with the applause still ringing in his ears, Flake voted to strip the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau of a rule that allowed Americans to file class-action suits against banks rather than being forced into an arbitration process that generally is as rigged as a North Korean election. From The Los Angeles Times:

  The rule was unveiled in July by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and praised by Democrats and consumer advocates as giving average people more power to fight industry abuses, such as Wells Fargo & Co.’s creation of millions of unauthorized accounts. But banking lobbyists argued that the rule would unleash a flood of class-action lawsuits, and that the cost of fighting those suits would be passed on to consumers. Republicans quickly moved to repeal the regulation.

  You have to love their timing, too. This move comes hard on the heels of the Equifax calamity, and just as the Congress is shilling for a massive upward shift in the country’s wealth that is disguised as a “middle-class tax cut.” Further, it proves that our political system learned absolutely nothing from what happened in 2008, when the masters of the universe nearly blew up the entire world economy.

  Set to take effect in March, the rule would not have banned clauses in checking account, credit card and other banking agreements that say disputes between companies and customers must be dealt with privately or in small claims court. Instead, there would have been a ban on provisions that block consumers from banding together to bring class-action cases. The CFPB argued that such cases help hold banks accountable. The determinations of an arbitrator are binding and consumer advocates say most decisions favor the company. The private proceedings also allow banks to deal with individual problems quietly rather than address widespread abuses. George Slover, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union, said the vote “means that big financial companies can lock the courthouse doors and prevent consumers who’ve been mistreated from joining together to seek the relief they deserve under the law.”

  You know who’s going to get hosed now, Senator McCain? All those veterans and military families that you’re always so tender about. You know who’s going to take it in the ear, Senators Corker, Flake, and Sasse? All those middle-class people in all those little towns that you spend most of your time praising as the reservoir of Real American Values. None of those people mattered a damn to you Tuesday night, and it wasn’t the president* that forced you to make this vote. You did it with cold deliberation and calculated forethought.
  
  And it’s not as though we don’t already know how stacked a deck the mandatory arbitration process is.

  For years, Wells Fargo used arbitration clauses to block lawsuits from customers who alleged that unauthorized accounts had been opened in their names. Ultimately, the bank estimated that as many as 3.5 million such accounts were opened.

  Just gaze in awe. Wells Fargo opened three-and-a-half million unauthorized accounts in the names of actual customers. To hell with a class action suit, these people should have been keelhauled under the Staten Island Ferry for a year. Now, though, Wells Fargo and the other banks, and their armies of lobbyists, have choked off the most effective way through which the people so swindled could get some form of justice.
  
  Three-and-a-half million phony accounts. More than twice as many phony accounts as there are actual people living in the borough of Manhattan, wherein Wall Street lies. A little more than three times as many actual people as live in Boston, where Wells Fargo has its headquarters. And the U.S. Senate, an otherwise torpid beast unable to get anything done, bestirs itself to make sure that these swindlers never are called to a proper account. The vice president stays up past his usual bedtime just to make sure. Tell me again who the real owners of the country are.

[Sue U]

Tell me again who the real owners of the country are.

Hey, they bought and paid for it. At least the government part. Why do you hate capitalism?

[Big RR]

And they got what they paid for as well.

[Sue U]

O hai, this just in (my in-box):

Dear ,

Late last night, 50 Senators joined Vice President Mike Pence to kill one of the most important advances in consumer rights in years.

By casting the tie-breaking vote to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's arbitration rule - which allowed consumers to band together to sue banks, financial institutions and credit card companies - Pence showed just how much power Wall Street has amassed on Capitol Hill and on Pennsylvania Avenue. It also unmasked the alarmingly cozy relationship between GOP leaders and the bank executives who defrauded millions of consumers and exposed their most important information to Equifax hackers.

As I told one reporter this morning, "This was the Wells Fargo Immunity Act."

Public Justice was proud to be a leading voice in the effort to defend the CFPB rule and help consumers fight back against the big banks that defraud their own customers. But make no mistake: Yesterday's vote was a big setback for consumer protection, but it did not kill the resolve of those of us who will continue to fight alongside the CFPB in order to give Americans their day in court.

Now that consumers have learned what's at stake, there's going to be more pressure from constituents for lawmakers to stop the kinds of behavior we've seen from Wells Fargo and Equifax, among others. Last night's vote, though heartbreaking for those of us who believe in protecting the little guy, may well turn out to be a huge catalyst for future change.

With your help, we will keep fighting to keep the courthouse doors open. Support Public Justice today and help ensure that, even though we lost the battle, we have the resources to win the war.

Onward,

Paul Bland
Executive Director


https://www.publicjustice.net/

So, Donald Trump promised during his campaign that he'd stick up for the little guy against the banks and Wall Street. If anyone wants to bet that he vetoes this legislation, I'm happy to take your money.

[Big RR]

does anyone know if the House passed the same legislation?

[Crackpot]

So does this mean Flakes invitation to caucus with the Democrats has been rescinded?

[Sue U]

does anyone know if the House passed the same legislation?

Passed the House in July; this was a Joint Resolution, so now goes to Trump for signature.

Congress.gov.

[Darren]

Darren, I don't understand what you're talking about here:

You're ignoring the generations of culture, rightly or wrongly, that effected the disruption we're seeing. ... The tea party in WV was mostly the elderly retirees that were pissed off enough to go to meetings rather play bingo at senior centers. Few are internet adept. ... Add in the faithful generations of lever pulling Democrats that crossed over and there was a sea change. Blame the media/PR all you want, good or bad, change happened.

What are "the generations of culture"? What were the elderly retirees "pissed off enough" about? Are you talking about the fact that the President was a black man? What does being "internet adept" have to do with it?

That seems self-explanatory to me. Ask yourself how Trump won Pennsylvania. That's been a blue state for sometime with the influence of Democrat controlled Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. I related my experience at the VA hospital when a Democrat that openly mentioned voting twice in the last two elections went off on Hillary with absolutely no encouragement or preliminary discussion other then me asking about the WW II vet's Navy experience.

Trump will go down as a marketing genius that took lemons and made lemonade.

Trump is not a marketing genius; he merely proves the rule that you can fool some of the people all of the time. Anyone who had any familiarity with his track record in business in NY and NJ over the past 30 years could have told you that. His M.O. has always been to leverage the hell out of a deal, take the skimmable cash, stiff the contractors and walk away, leaving the investors holding the bag.

Obviously his failed businesses were not an issue for the voters that put him in office. You would have had to be deaf and blind to miss the media promotion of his misdeeds business or non-business. Ask yourself why that didn't affect his election.

Even rodeo clowns have an important job to do. Don't let the tomfoolery deceive you.

I don't disagree; as much as they hate Trump personally for his lack of discipline, his narcissism, his vulgarity and his complete absence of principle, the moneyed interests behind the Tea Party brand are perfectly willing to use him as tool in implementing their agenda. He wasn't their candidate and he's far from ideal, but he is fundamentally aligned with their views.

Lots of coal miners, oil field workers and construction workers seem to like Trump. I posted the picture of the sendoff Hillary received in Williamston, WV. When Hillary called Trump supporters deplorables she alienated lots of Americans. In the end the people supporting families want their shot at a decent pay check. Hillary didn't make that case.

IMO, Trump mobilized what was called the silent majority in the past.

Well, except for the actual fact that the majority of voters voted for Hillary Clinton. By a margin of about 3 million.

The jury is still out on that. Despite the stumble at the start, the voting commission is still active. I have no clue why they didn't just buy the data like businesses do all the time. Instead they did the high and mighty " give us all your data" bit. Dumb doesn't start to describe that action. States monetized that long ago. Trying to get the data for free wasn't playing by the rules.

By gathering the state data, they'll be able to find people registered in more than one state and whether or not they voted in the same election for federal offices in more than one state. Sucks to be those voters. I suspect they'll take a close look at districts like the one that has an exceptional number of voters over 100 years old. If I was on the commission I'd be very interested in precincts where more votes occurred than registered voters. In the end I expect that three million margin to shrink greatly or, most likely, disappear. Lots of absentee ballots from the same address are another red flag. If you think voting fraud isn't rampant in certain big cities, I have some really expensive stuff I'll sell you for pennies on the dollar simply because you did me a favor years ago.

When the Democrats pulled the slicky in California to stop Saunders they lost the future of the party.

Bernie Sanders is not the future of the Democratic Party. Hell, he's not even a Democrat. He was never going to win the nomination, and he and everyone else knew it. The only people "resentful" about his loss are ideological purity drones who either don't understand or don't care how a major political party actually works.

You're correct. Sanders isn't the future of the Democrat Party. OTOH, his young enthusiastic supporters who were thrown out by Hillary with the bathwater are the future.

When Trump stumbled in Alabama, it should be clear that the base that came together to elect Trump, is still active.

Trump's "loss" in the Strange-Moore battle has more to do with the frankly bizarre Dominionist and homophobic peculiarities of the Alabama GOP base. To the extent Steve Bannon robustly backed Moore -- and that Trump was clearly cowed by it (that last campaign appearance was excruciating) -- you can see where the power actually lies.

The power still lies with the base that elected Trump. That's been shown in other elections since last November. The base is still intact and intent on retiring or excluding politicians at odds with what they believe. PC is out in case you haven't heard. Trump's unPC ways won him a lot of votes. People are tired of that shit!

[Econoline]

Trump Signs New Travel Ban Preventing Republican Senators from Fleeing

[Darren]

Trump Signs New Travel Ban Preventing Republican Senators from Fleeing

That's a good one. I imagine both Democrat and Republican senators had a "Holy Crap!" moment when Trump was elected. As long as Trump can pull off the us versus them act, he's gold to his base.