Republicans and Democrat Ben Nelson block advance of Financial Reform bill

Washington Post: Republicans voted unanimously Monday to block an effort to overhaul financial regulations from reaching the Senate floor, pledging to hold out for significant changes to the bill even as they acknowledged the political risk of appearing to obstruct a popular cause.

The 57 to 41 vote in favor of beginning debate, short of the 60 needed, was expected, although Democrats did suffer an unanticipated defection when Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) joined Republicans as a no. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) was prepared to call further votes Tuesday, Wednesday and beyond.

"We need to keep the pressure on to get a deal as quickly as possible," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said. [MORE]

Let the game begin. Harry Reid and the Democrats aren’t really that serious about reforming the financial industry. If they were, how come such troublesome things like, Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac, the sub prime mortgage market or Mortgage Backed Securities are not addressed? These were the things that damn need brought down our financial house.  Instead, what we get is another 1300+-page bill, which seeks to give government more control over the private sector.

Democrats are looking for issues to run on in November. By trying to paint Republicans as defenders of Wall Street excess, they hope to give themselves something else to run on other than ObamaCare. Look for Reid to drag out this bill for all it is worth.

Ben Nelson is also playing a game here too. He wants to distance himself from Reid and Pelosi whenever and wherever possible in a sorry attempt to erase the memory of the Cornhusker Kickback. Good luck with that, Ben! In the end, should a significant Republican issue be addressed in a rewrite of the bill, old Ben will be right back on board with the Democrats.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The Washington Post

Via: banking.senate.gov

The Regulators Need Regulating: SEC Execs Surfed For Porn During Economic Collapse

As Obama tries to go after Wall Street “fat cats” by giving the government more regulatory control, the very agencies that should have been minding the store in the first place were busy searching for porn. 

Associated Press: The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed. […] 

• A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.

• An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.

• Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.

• The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008. 

 California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said it was "disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation's economy on the brink of collapse." 

Before Obama and the Democrats give government more responsibility over Wall Street, shouldn’t they first get the regulators in order? What is the point in setting all these new regulations if the regulators are better suited for life in a frat house?

This story, like so many we have all heard before, is just more proof that the big government socialist model is ineffective. Just think, horny incompetents like the ones at the SEC will soon be involved with your health care.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: Associated Press