Kabuki Kongriss

If the theater is where we go to pretend, then surely there is no more delusional stage than our Kabuki Kongriss. Last week the House passed a new financial regulation bill. The Democrats are pretending that it is actually meaningful reform. The Republicans (100% of whom voted against it) are pretending that they were saving America from bureaucratic strangulation. Both parties are pretending that the financial services industry didn’t really give members of Congress $344 million in the first nine months of 2009. That is an annualized average take of a little over $857,000 per member of the House and Senate. But of course this had no bearing on anyone’s role in either writing a toothless joke of a reform bill, or on voting against it to prove what a macho conservative one is.

But no worries; the Senate now gets to remove whatever meaningful provisions the bill contains before sending it back to the House. If the Senate can drag its feet long enough they may be able to get the financial lobbies to throw in an extra $100 mil or so.
Next up: pretend health care reform.

In other Congressional action, the Senate also began an investigation into the collegiate football playoff system. According to Jimmy Fallon, “In a related note, the NCAA has begun to explore options for getting out of Afghanistan.”

Joke of the Week: What is the difference between Santa Claus and Tiger Woods? Santa usually stops after three ho’s.

According to Gary Trudeau, “Twitter is the first rough draft of gossip.”

Finally, thank you all so much for your support of my new cowbell career. Who knew so many of you were into cowbelliana? The inside bell technique described by McRik was simply my attempt to recreate the sound that I hear inside my own head whenever I hear Joe Lieberman attempt to explain how he reached a particular political position.

One thing all the books tell you is that you need to have goals in order to have a happy and successful retirement, and I confess that I’ve been struggling in this regard. However, I am delighted to announce today that in January I will be enrolling in “The Bruce Dickenson Cowbell Academy,” located in beautiful Punta Mantua, Florida. It is now my dream to one day perform the cowbell trifecta of (Don’t) Fear the Reaper, Mississippi Queen and Time Has Come Today at Carnegie Hall -- accompanied by the Prowlers, of course.

The social season is really heating up now. I’m not sure when I’ll be back so let me wish you Happy Holidays now in case I fall off the map in an egg nog stupor. Going to Babbo tonight with Buzzard and a couple of hot ladies. Can’t wait to get on the outside of some BBQ sweetbreads.

Duplicity

I hope everyone had a chance to see Charlie Rangel express his outrage over the A.I.G. bonuses last week. What a performance by Cadillac Charlie. If you didn’t know better you’d never know that he solicited millions from the insurance giant and its former CEO, all the while inserting provisions in bills that saved the corporation many times that amount. If it seems I’m picking on him, believe me I realize that’s what Congressmen who gain the sort of power he has do, but he’s close to home and the Times does a good job of outing him – not that anyone seems to care. Read the latest here.

Another act of Congressional duplicity that ranks at the top of the list of double dealing the public was the provision inserted in the bill that created prescription drug benefits for older Americans which prohibited Medicare from using the buying power of the 40 million Americans who use Medicare to get competitive pricing. It’s been three years and now we know the cost of that provision, drafted by drug lobbyists and passed by our Congress: $30 billion over 10 years. There’s a good update in a column about it here.

I know many of you don’t want President Obama to take on Congress, but how else do we stop grand larceny on this scale?

A third, less damaging form of duplicity, is the new movie of the same name. It’s a fast paced, stylish, old-fashion caper movie with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, and they are both great. Owen may be the coolest guy (other than Clint) in the movies today. One warning however: if you are easily confused by complicated plot twists, this may not be the movie for you. This one has more switchbacks than an Afghan mountain road.

St. Barack and the dragon

The dragon is Congress and we are the Princess. If BHO can’t get the Parliament of Whores ("Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and they get elected and prove it.") under control, and soon, they may just ruin his Presidency before he even gets a chance to show us what he can do.

Why does he continue to play Obambi with them? Americans hold Congress in lower esteem than even the reviled GWB. What could make better political sense than using his considerable political capital to take them on and break them of their belief that the U.S. Treasury is their own personal slush fund?

Good Lord, even Maureen Dowd is starting to comment on the bountiful portions of pork they ladled into the current budget, and on BHO’s unwillingness to stop them despite his campaign promise to end this practice. The earmarks may represent a small portion of the budget, but they are a powerful symbol of Washington’s arrogance and waste.

Watching the Congressional budget hearings yesterday and listening to the ignorance that oozed from nearly every question our legislators asked made me cringe. These people are truly fools.
If he stomps on them now he’ll be a hero to millions – including to many of his critics on the right. If he doesn’t, he’ll be a prisoner to Pelosi and Reid for four years and will be building his Presidential Library by 2012.

Would you lend this man $2300?

This would be your share of the $700 B he wants to use to buy back the bad investments his life-long pals on Wall Street made in mortgage backed securities and other investments they really didn’t understand, beyond recognizing an opportunity for making a easy buck. By-the-way, your spouse and each of your children owe $2300 also. Actually, scratch that; you and I won’t pay anything; we don’t have the $700B so we’re borrowing it. Only your kids, and their kids, will get stuck with the tab. Nice legacy.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for days but who knows what to say? It’s changing minute-by-minute, and the whole thing is unbelievable. Not only is no one taking the blame, the people responsible – financial executives, Congress, and the regulatory agencies – are basically saying, “who could have foreseen such a situation?” Well, I did, for one. Not that I have any expertise or a crystal ball, but the major business books and economic pundits have been warning about something like this happening for years. There were even funny emails in broad distribution about the housing bubble; my favorite was the roller coaster view of housing prices.

So now the guys who got us into this mess want to help us out. It’s not so much a loan as extortion: “Lend us the money – now, without oversight, debate, or controls, no promise of success or payback (but with immunity from future liabilities) – or we’ll have our friends bring down such a financial shit storm on your heads you’ll wish you had.”

Fortunately, it looks like Congress has actually grown a pair since they were last asked to consider anything of importance, and may demand a different approach in which we the people at least get some equity in the firms we’re bailing out. I’m guessing some variation of the plan Senator Dodd put forth will be the final word.

Unfortunately, first we’ll have to listen to a week or two of Congressional hearings in which, Captain Renault-like, they express, “shock!” at the discovery that there was gambling going on below Canal Street.

Happy Valentine’s Day: Congress must die

The current Presidential campaign has rejuvenated my sense of optimism for the country. All of the remaining five candidates (yes, I’m counting Ron Paul) are smart, articulate, sincere people and each would be a major upgrade from what we’ve lived with the last seven years.

But I keep forgetting it’s about more than the Presidency. Our Congress is truly a collection of whores, egomaniacs and idiots, and the only proof you need is to watch the “hearings” on whether or not Roger Clemens took steroids.

We have a war, a recession, 40 million people with no health care, no energy plan for the 21st century, and countless other problems; meanwhile, these nimrods grill the Rocket for almost five hours over an issue that can never be resolved because there are no witnesses besides the guy who says he did and the guy who says he didn’t.

But each Congressman gets his 5 minutes on the evening news, or if he is really lucky, ESPN, to wag his finger and lecture on the example being set for the youth of America. That’s all that really matters.

You want to set an example for America’s youth? Let these fools take all the steroids they want, and when the better-known among them start dying (like the WWF guys are already) kids will notice and make the right decision.