2009-12-26

psa [updated]

january 5th is the last day for registering or transfering your registration if you moved, verify your status

http://www.elections.state.il.us/VotingInformation/RegistrationLookup.aspx

i will not be on the ballot

i have not changed my opposition to ms bean, there will be no other person to vote for listed on the ballot for in the primary next month

i am a registered write-in for the IL-08 seat in the democratic primary in cook, lake, and mchenry counties, just put in "jonathan farnick" when you get to this race

[too, also]

as to why i'm doing this:

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/199701-Something-s-Not-Right-Here

video of segment @ link, partial transcript:

BILL MOYERS: But members of Congress, they take the same contributions from the same insurance and real estate and drug industry. You look at the list of contributions to members of Congress- they are as saddled by obligations as the President, right?


ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, some are and some aren't. I mean, the House, at least, just passed a bill that's over $100 billion to extend unemployment, extend insurance benefits in the interim prevent lay-offs at the level of state and local government. Now, you have a group of Democrats, and this is the real pity of it. The Democrats are supposed to be the party of the average person. You have the so-called New Democrats who are really the party of Wall Street. And then you have the Blue Dogs who are fiscal conservatives. And if you look at what happened in Barney Frank's committee to the financial reform bill, he's a pretty good liberal, he ended up looking like a complete stooge for industry because in order to get a bill out of his own committee, he had to appease the 15 New Democrats, so-called, who were put on that committee mostly by Rahm Emanuel when he was the-


MATT TAIBBI: Sort of as a means to raise money.


ROBERT KUTTNER: As a means to raise money. So Melissa Bean, who's a two-term Democratic Congressman ends up being the power broker because she controls 15 votes on Barney Frank's committee of what she's going to allow out of committee and what she isn't.


BILL MOYERS: Why does she control 15 votes?


ROBERT KUTTNER: Because there are 15 New Dems, and this is the centrist caucus that particularly specializes in taking money from the financial industry.


BILL MOYERS: You call them centrist, don't you mean corporate Democrats? I mean-


ROBERT KUTTNER: Corporate, yes, sorry. That's too kind. They're corporate Democrats who were put on that committee because Rahm Emanuel felt that there's no better place than the House Financial Services Committee if you want to shake down Wall Street, to put it bluntly.


MATT TAIBBI: There's a great example of Melissa Bean's power was when the banks wanted to pass an amendment into the bill that would have prevented the states from making their own tougher financial regulatory rules. And Bean put through this amendment that basically said that the federal government would have purview over all these laws. And it passed. And this was the kind of thing that the banks wanted. They just go to Melissa Bean, she puts that amendment in there and it and it gets through

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