Democrats ducking responsibility for financial meltdown

Robert Scheer writes the following at Common Dreams:

That Lawrence Summers, a president emeritus of Harvard, is a consummate distorter of fact and logic is not a revelation. That he and Bill Clinton, the president he served as treasury secretary, can still get away with disclaiming responsibility for our financial meltdown is an insult to reason.

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Award-winning film director arrested a public hearing on Capital Hill

From Huffpo:

Josh Fox, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary "Gasland" was taken into custody by Capitol Hill police this morning, along with his crew, after Republicans objected to their presence, according to Democratic sources present at the hearing. The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment had been taking place in room 2318 of the Rayburn building.

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Matt Taibbi sizes up the GOP

Matt Taibbi is at his best as he describes Mitt Romney versus Newt Gingrich:

They may be shit for choosing a good candidate for the presidency, but say this for the Republican primaries: They're fast turning into the most luridly entertaining political spectacle of our time. In an inherently conservative, bottomlessly moneyed, scrupulously stage-managed electoral system designed to preclude chance or weirdness from playing any part in determining our political future, the unthinkable is happening: real drama. This isn't part of some clever but inscrutable master plan, put on by the hidden hands who run this country, to fool or distract the masses. This is an unscripted fuck-up of heroic dimensions, radiating downward from the highest levels of our society, playing out in real time for all of us to watch. Our oligarchy has thrown a rod.

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Political circus and fascism

I am reacting much the same as Richard Cohen to the ongoing political circus. I'm having an especially difficult time believing the lack of nuance that I'm seeing and hearing of the GOP nomination process. I am also haunted by the analysis by Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt regarding the characteristics of fascism. Britt compiled his list after analyzing the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile).

  • Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
  • Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
  • Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
  • Supremacy of the Military
  • Rampant Sexism
  • Controlled Mass Media
  • Obsession with National Security
  • Religion and Government are Intertwined
  • Corporate Power is Protected
  • Labor Power is Suppressed
  • Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
  • Obsession with Crime and Punishment
  • Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
  • Fraudulent Elections

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The extent to which the banks own Congress

To what extent do the banks own Congress? Paul Blumenthal reports at Huffpo:

When Washington puts policy on the auction block, bankers are consistently the highest bidders. The industry's most striking victory has been the watering down of post-financial crisis reforms, to the point that banks are now bigger than ever and the bonuses keep flowing. But Wall Street's campaign spending and lobbying power is so intimidating that banks have repeatedly stuck the public with the tab for their losses and no one in Washington stops them. Why hasn't the government done something about outrageous ATM fees? Or credit card interest rates up to 30 percent? Bankers' clout is such that common-sense pro-consumer legislation is presumptively dead on arrival at Capitol Hill if it threatens banks' revenue streams.

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