A Hostile, Tyrannical Government Takeover of Controls Over Private Assets?
- NEARLY 2,000 PAGES: The legislation would redraw how money flows through economy...[!!!]
- Government would have broad new powers to seize Americans' assets...[!!!]
- DODD: 'No one will know until this is actually in place how it works'... [!!!]
They have done this exact thing to us with ObamaCare, Stimulus, TARP and dozens of smaller bills. Wake-up America
Updated 5:49 p.m. Eastern Time
The House has passed the campaign finance reform bill known as the DISCLOSE Act by a vote of 219 to 206.
217 Democrats and two Republicans voted for the measure.
The DISCLOSE Act, or the Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act, would require corporations to disclose top five donors in their political ads and the head of the company would be required to appear at the end of the ad.
But the bill exempts the NRA, AARP and the Humane Society from the requirements. It exempts 401C4 organizations with over 500,000 members.
The bill is a response to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling in January that lifted requirements and limits on corporate or union-funded political advertising.
The bill still needs to pass the Senate. While Senate Democratic leaders say this is a priority, it is difficult to see how they can fit it into their packed schedule.
"The Democratic majority in the House jammed through a piece of legislation that clearly violates the Constitution, as well as basic principles of fairness and equity," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said in a statement. Donohue's powerful business lobby would be subject to the disclosure rules under the legislation.
Said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence: "This bill exempting the NRA, and only a handful of other wealthy groups, from having to follow the same rules as other advocacy groups involved in political campaigns is fundamentally flawed, likely can't survive judicial scrutiny, and should be rejected by the United States Senate as currently written."
President Obama weighed in with a supportive statement.
"I congratulate the House of Representatives on today's passage of the DISCLOSE Act, a critical piece of legislation to control the flood of special interest money into our elections. The DISCLOSE Act would establish the strongest-ever disclosure requirements for election-related spending by special interests, including Wall Street and big oil companies, and it would restrict spending by foreign-controlled corporations. It would give the American public the right to see exactly who is spending money in an attempt to influence campaigns for public office. The House bill is not perfect - I would have preferred that it include no exemptions. But it mandates unprecedented transparency in campaign spending, and it ensures that corporations who spend money on American elections are accountable first and foremost to the American people. I urge the Senate to act swiftly on its version of the bill, and I look forward to working with both chambers on prompt enactment of final legislation."
Dems Pass Bank Bill, Admit They Don’t Know How It Works
The Democrats' "sweeping financial overhaul," as the Washington Post calls it, appears to be an effort to further consolidate power, every bit as tyrannical as the Obama Regime's Hostile Government Takeover of our Healthcare System, whose provisions, supposedly to begin after the next Presidential election, are being phased in even as I type this.
But that's why we're nominating and electing principled, constitutional conservatives, so we can restore America, and overturn these hostile power grabs apparently designed to establish the first dictatorship in America since King George was the effective sovereign over our nation.
So they've taken over American Automobile Manufacturing, Health Care, and Banking; now they'll have power to seize "systemic risks" and "failing companies," just as they already have the power, via the FDIC, to seize banks, including all of their foreclosed properties. Folks, thinks are getting more intense.
Here are the Drudge headlines, all of which appear to be accurate (exclamations in brackets [ ] added for emphasis):
- NEARLY 2,000 PAGES: The legislation would redraw how money flows through economy...[!!!]
- Government would have broad new powers to seize Americans' assets...[!!!]
- DODD: 'No one will know until this is actually in place how it works'... [!!!]
Here are the main articles from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal:
Lawmakers guide Dodd-Frank bill for Wall Street reform into homestretch
By David Cho, Jia Lynn Yang and Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer - Saturday, June 26, 2010; A01
Nearly two years after tremors on Wall Street set off a historic economic downturn, congressional leaders greenlighted a bill early Friday that would leave the financial industry largely intact but facing a more powerful network of regulators who could impose limits on risky activities.
The final bill took shape after a 20-hour marathon negotiation between House and Senate leaders seeking to reconcile their separate versions. The legislation puts a lot of faith in the watchful eye of regulators to prevent another financial crisis. New agencies would police consumer lending, the invention of financial products and the trading of exotic securities known as derivatives. Bank supervisors would have the power to seize large, troubled financial firms whose collapse could threaten the entire system. The bill calls for banks to hold more money in reserve to weather economic storms but leaves the details to regulators.
But with a few exceptions, the measure avoids dictating to Wall Street what it can and cannot do. The bill does not break up big banks or ban the trading of derivatives. Nor does it significantly streamline the confusing array of financial regulators in Washington.
The House and Senate are set to vote on the legislation next week, and administration officials said President Obama could sign it into law before July 4.
The action capped a surprisingly good week for Wall Street. On Thursday, Democrats failed to pass a separate bill that would have raised taxes on some of the country's wealthiest financiers. On Friday, stocks of financial firms jumped when trading opened in New York. Many analysts said the markets breathed a collective sigh of relief that the regulatory reform talks were over and that the results could have been much worse for the financial industry.
One firm that is likely to face more oversight is Goldman Sachs, which has become emblematic of the excesses of Wall Street. Regulators would more carefully track the firm's riskiest activities. In the coming year, a regulatory council could force the bank to shed its sizable hedge funds and private-equity activities. It also could be banned from making financial trades for its own profit instead of for clients, shaving roughly 10 percent from the firm's revenue. But after those changes, Goldman Sachs and a few other financial titans will still dominate the financial system, the analysts said.
A flurry of dealmaking allowed several industries to escape the new system. At the last minute, auto dealers were granted exemptions from new consumer rules, despite their major role in lending. Most mutual fund and insurance companies avoided a ban on some risky trading. Community banks, which make up the vast majority of their industry, got a carve-out months ago.
Still, the deal reached a few minutes before dawn Friday all but ensures that Obama will see his second major legislative achievement of the year, after health care, Democrats said. It also gives the president momentum as he presses major economies in Europe and Asia to make similar changes at an economic summit in Toronto this weekend.
"We are poised to pass the toughest financial reform since the ones we created in the aftermath of the Great Depression," Obama said at the White House, adding that the bill "represents 90 percent of what I proposed when I took up this fight . . . We've all seen what happens when there is inadequate oversight and insufficient transparency on Wall Street."
Asked whether he expected the compromise legislation to pass the full Senate -- which approved an earlier version, 59-39 on May 20, with support from four Republicans -- Obama replied, "You bet."
Republican lawmakers who serve on congressional financial panels blasted the compromise bill. "This legislation is a failure on both counts," Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said in a statement. "It will not encourage much-needed stability and confidence in our financial markets. It will not significantly reduce systemic risk in our financial sector."
A flurry of change
The bill's final passage would set off a rush of activity. Two long-standing bank regulators would be combined, and regulators would have to launch more than 20 studies on controversial topics such as limiting the risky activities of big financial firms and setting precise capital reserve standards for banks.
Some administration officials acknowledged that leaving so much decision-making in the hands of regulators could open the process to lobbying by the financial industry. Many bank supervisors, in fact, work inside the headquarters of the biggest financial firms and have close relationships with the executives of the companies they regulate.
Among the first tasks for the administration would be to set up a new consumer protection bureau that would monitor credit card companies, mortgage brokers and banks to make sure consumers have clear information about financial products. The new agency, while housed in the Federal Reserve, would have its own budget and director appointed by the president and would have wide authority to write consumer protection rules and enforce them with civil penalties. It could, for instance, force mortgage lenders to be more upfront about possible interest increases in adjustable-rate loans. During the crisis, many borrowers were caught off guard by the rise in rates on such loans.
The wee hours of Friday morning brought about the final and most arduous compromises between lawmakers in reconciling the chambers' two versions of the bill.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) agreed to scale back a controversial provision that would have forced the nation's biggest banks to spin off their lucrative derivatives-dealing businesses. The proposal had been a particularly thorny issue for Democrats, causing internal divisions that threatened to derail the entire process.
Administration officials and Democratic leaders worked fervently to bridge the divide between Lincoln and a bloc of House Democrats that opposed the provision, especially those from New York, where much of the derivatives industry is concentrated. Finally, the two sides agreed to allow banks to hold onto derivatives related to traditional banking operations such as interest rates, currency rates and gold and silver. Banks would have to move their riskiest derivatives trades into an affiliate that must have its own capital reserves. The Senate agreed to the compromise language just after 2:30 a.m.
'Volcker rule'
The conference panel also strengthened the "Volcker rule," named after former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. That measure would bar banks from trading with their own money, a practice known as proprietary trading. In reaching this deal, negotiators adopted a provision that would ban certain forms of proprietary trading and forbid firms from betting against securities they sell to clients.
Under the agreement, firms would have up to two years to scale back proprietary trading and investments in hedge funds and private-equity funds. Banks also would be barred from betting against their clients on certain investments.
Even as they worked to toughen the Volcker language, lawmakers agreed to an exemption at the behest of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), one of the four Republicans who voted for the earlier version of the bill. Brown, whose state is a hub of the asset-management industry, wanted the bill to allow banks to invest at least a small amount of capital in hedge funds and private-equity investments. The measure would prohibit a bank from placing more than 3 percent of its capital in such investments. It was one of a number of provisions tailored to hold onto key votes as the bill heads toward final passage.
The cavernous Dirksen 106 conference room remained packed as dawn approached, but it was a chaotic and cluttered mass of humanity. Lawmakers had stopped trying to conceal their yawns. Aides who had worn down their BlackBerry batteries recharged them for the home stretch. Trash cans spilled over with coffee cups and sandwich wrappers. Empty Fritos bags and plastic Diet Coke bottles littered the room, along with reams of paper: old amendments, new amendments, handwritten amendments, amendments to amendments.
Weary lawmakers wrapped up their work minutes before sunrise. "It's a great moment," said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the banking committee led the effort in the Senate. "It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done."
One of the last motions Friday was to name the bill after the two chairmen, Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had shepherded the legislation through the House over the past year. At 5:07 a.m., they agreed unanimously that it would be known as the Dodd-Frank bill, and the sound of applause echoed down the empty hallways.
JUNE 25, 2010, 12:29 P.M. ET
U.S. Lawmakers Reach Accord on New Finance Rules
By DAMIAN PALETTA
Sen. Christopher Dodd, left, and Sen. Richard Shelby.
WASHINGTON—After more than 20 hours of continuous wrangling, congressional Democrats and White House officials reached agreement on the final shape of legislation that would transform financial regulation, avoiding last-minute defections among New York lawmakers that had threatened to upend the bill.
After months of uncertainty about how the U.S. would craft new rules, the agreement offers the clearest picture since the financial crisis of how markets and the government will interact for decades to come. The common thread: large financial companies are facing a tougher leash.
The bill is expected to have enough support to become law. Both chambers plan to vote next week. The margin in the House and Senate will likely be close because most Republicans are expected to oppose the measure.
If the bill passes, President Barack Obama is expected to sign the package into law by July 4. Thursday's agreement also gives the president leverage going into a weekend summit of world leaders in Canada, where he will prod other nations to rewrite their rules.
"This is about as important as it gets, because it deals with every single aspect of our lives," said Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), a chief architect of the compromise.
In two important ways, the agreement is tougher on the banking industry than officials in the Treasury Department anticipated when they first drafted their version of the bill 12 months ago.
Lawmakers agreed to a provision known as the "Volcker" rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which prohibits banks from making risky bets with their own funds. To win support from Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.), Democrats agreed to allow financial companies to make limited investments in areas such as hedge funds and private-equity funds.
The move could require some big banks to spin off divisions, known as proprietary-trading desks, which make bets with the firms' money.
The bill also includes a provision, authored by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark), which would limit the ability of federally insured banks to trade derivatives. This provision almost derailed the bill following vehement objections from New York Democrats. Ms. Lincoln worked out a deal in the early hours of Friday morning that would allow banks to trade interest-rate swaps, certain credit derivatives and others—in other words the kind of standard safeguards a bank would take to hedge its own risk.
A panel of 43 lawmakers spent two weeks reconciling differences between a bill that passed the House in December and the Senate in May. They concluded their negotiations along party lines at a little after 5 a.m. ET in a Capitol Hill conference room marked by tension, levity and exhaustion. Senior administration officials, including Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Neal Wolin, arrived late in the afternoon to try and quell the feud between the New York delegation and Ms. Lincoln.
Major components of the bill, including the derivatives provisions, were negotiated in the hallway of the Dirksen Senate Office Building as the clock neared midnight. At one point, after hearing of an offer from Senate Democrats, Rep. Melissa Bean (D., Ill.) exclaimed: "Are you flipping kidding me? Are you flipping kidding me?"
Democrats hailed the agreement as a tool to prevent the kind of taxpayer-funded bailouts that stabilized the economy in 2008 but left divisive scars. Many Republicans said the bill could have unintended consequences, crimping financial markets and access to credit.
"My guess is there are three unintended consequences on every page of this bill," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) said of the nearly 2,000-page bill.
The deal comes as the banking industry is still struggling to regain its footing. Hundreds of banks have been dragged down by bad loans and investments. The violent restructuring of the U.S. banking sector two years ago has left just a few companies controlling a vast amount of the deposits, assets and financial plumbing of the country.
Government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain a multibillion dollar drain on the U.S. Treasury, and largely untouched by this proposal. And the banking sector in parts of Europe remains fragile.
The legislation would redraw how money flows through the U.S. economy, from the way people borrow money to the way banks structure complicated products like derivatives. It could touch every person who has a bank account or uses a credit card.
It would erect a new consumer-protection regulator within the Federal Reserve, give the government new powers to break up failing companies and assign a council of regulators to monitor risks to the financial system. It would also set up strict new rules on big banks, limiting their risk and increasing the costs.
The legislation gives the Securities and Exchange Commission new powers to regulate Wall Street and monitor hedge funds, increasing the agency's access to funding. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission would also have new powers under the bill, which would try and force most derivatives to face more scrutiny from regulators and other market participants.
To pay for some of the new government programs, the bill would allow the government to charge fees to large banks and hedge funds to raise up to $19 billion spread over five years. The assessment is designed to eventually pay down a part of the national debt.
The broad contours had been set for weeks and mostly mirror a proposal the White House has pushed since last summer. But the last few days represented a mad dash of political maneuvering to iron out final details.
Negotiations went into Friday morning, with New York Democrats and White House officials meeting to address the bill's potential impact on New York, which relies on the financial industry for employment and tax revenue.
To win broader support, Democrats softened the bill's impact on community banks, auto dealers, and small payday lenders and check cashers.
From the beginning, lawmakers opted against a dramatic reshaping of the country's financial architecture. Instead, they moved to create new layers of regulation to prevent companies from taking on too much risk.
For example, regulators decided not to order a sweeping consolidation of the regulatory agencies policing finance. They also decided not to bust up large financial companies, despite pressure from liberal groups.
But they did create a process for seizing and dismantling faltering companies, tools the government lacked in 2008 during the seemingly chaotic events surrounding Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and American International Group Inc.
Democrats are banking on stronger government regulators to constrain risk in the financial system and prevent a future banking crisis—or at least blunt its impact.
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Stories like this remind us of the fact that the wisdom of food storage, energy independence (including at your own home, as in solar panels, wind energy, solar water heaters, etc.), and general preparedness is increasingly important, and our need to be prepared is far more urgent than even a month ago. It might be a good time to look into FoodInsurance.com, like Glenn recommends, for all who don't have a guaranteed supply of food to last them a year or more. And if one has nothing saved up, food-wise, gold-wise, or other-wise, but can see what is coming, nothing will bring peace of mind like the ability to eat, no matter what. When I got my first order from FoodInsurance.com, I felt like Glenn talks about feeling when he's advertising for them on the radio: the burden which began to lift off of my shoulders is surprisingly heavy. In my case (as I'm sure it is in many of yours), with a wife and three kids, the burden to provide, whatever comes, weighs heavily in a time such as now. If you can't afford Gold (and even if you can), if you don't yet have food security, it's a good idea to get food you don't have to worry about rotating, because it will still be good in one year or twenty; regardless of how this turns out, at some point the wisdom of preparedness will be as obvious as the nose on one's face. Honestly, if things get bad enough, many believe that food will be worth its weight in gold. A starving man will definitely part with whatever he has to in order to survive, and even more so if he has a starving wife and starving children.
Please also remember to prepare go-packs (a backpack with everything you'd need to survive on foot, in case you must leave your home on short notice). And try to store clothing, shoes, fuel, water, toothpaste, soap, etc. in addition to food - if this happens soon, you won't want to have to divide your resources among other essentials like soap, shampoo, Q-tips, toothbrushes/heads, toothpaste, deodorant/antiperspirant, toilet paper, etc. Don't forget copies of the Constitution & Declaration, and other essential publications. See our Preparedness Group for more.
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You might want to call your SENATOR today:
111TH CONGRESS (UNITED STATES SENATE)
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House Narrowly Passes Gag Order (DISCLOSE) Act
-- Now it's time to barrage the Senate
Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://gunowners.org
"Now the NRA are the big defenders of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the right to bear arms. But yet they think it's all right to throw everybody else under the table so they can get a special deal, while requiring everyone else to comply with all the rules outlined in this bill, and frankly, I think it's disappointing." -- House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), June 24, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Well, if there were any doubt as to what greased the skids for the DISCLOSE Act's final passage... the quote above hits the nail on the head.
Speaking on the House floor, Rep. Boehner blasted the horse-trading that occurred behind the scenes -- noting that certain groups were made exempt from the legislation in order to convince them to drop their opposition to H.R. 5175.
Republican Dan Lungren of California called it an "auction behind closed doors." Some groups won, Lungren said, others lost.
Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) vilified the bill because of its ambiguity. He said that since the Federal Election Commission won't issue regulations to implement the bill before the election, people will have to guess at what the new election law is. That's because the government won't be able to tell people what the law actually is... and if you guess wrong, you go to jail or get prosecuted.
Harper tagged liberals for trying to rush this bill (with all of its ambiguities) for immediate implementation so that Democrats can gag their opponents in the upcoming election. Why else, Harper asked, won't Pelosi and company delay the implementation of the bill until the 2012 elections?
Another irony with the whole process surrounding this legislation is that while the bill is called the DISCLOSE Act, liberal Democrats did not reveal (until a couple of hours before the Rules Committee Vote) that an amendment had been inserted at the last minute to exempt labor unions from the requirements of the bill. By the way, many of these requirements would make it much more difficult for GOA to hold legislators accountable during an election year.
The DISCLOSE Act (H.R. 5175) passed narrowly by a 219-206 vote. You can see how your Representative voted by going to: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll391.xml
GOA thanks all its activists for their hard work on this bill. Don't be discouraged, it is MUCH harder for us to kill legislation in that chamber. The fact that we came so close -- only 7 votes needed to switch -- means that we probably have the muscle to kill this in the Senate!
ACTION: Please urge your Senator to oppose the Disclose Act (H.R. 5175 and S. 3295). You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Senators the pre-written e-mail message below.
----- Pre-written letter -----
Dear Senator:
I stand with Gun Owners of America in opposing the DISCLOSE Act (H.R. 5175 and S. 3295).
It is outrageous that the House of Representatives passed this legislation with a deal to exempt certain large organizations from the terms of the DISCLOSE Act. This smacks of the money-for-votes fiasco which helped grease the skids for passage of ObamaCare and which has already lowered Congress' reputation to unprecedented depths.
I was glad to see that Senator Mitch McConnell blasted this deal, which was especially aimed at carving out special exemptions for the NRA leadership in exchange for their promise to sit on their hands and not oppose the DISCLOSE Act. "If there is one thing Americans loathe about Washington, it's the backroom dealing to win the vote of organizations with power and influence at the expense of everyone else," McConnell said.
"Just as it wasn't the Democrats' money to offer in the health care debate, free speech isn't theirs to ration out to those willing to play ball -- it's a right guaranteed by our First Amendment to all Americans."
I agree wholeheartedly. Please do NOT vote in favor of this legislation, as it will have a chilling effect upon our free speech rights by forcing the organizations we associate with to disclose their membership lists.
How ironic that a Congress and President who treat transparency with contempt should now be trying to force legal organizations to disclose the names of their law-abiding members. The hypocrisy is blatant, to say the least.
Vote no on H.R. 5175 or S. 3295.
Sincerely,
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Cantor: DISCLOSE Act A Blatant Attempt To Sway November Election
WASHINGTON, D.C – House Republican Whip Eric Cantor today issued the following statement on the Democrats’ unconstitutional DISCLOSE Act complete with special interest carve out for union bosses:
"Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Chris Van Hollen are fond of saying the DISCLOSE Act is fundamental to Democracy, but the truth is that it’s a fundamental to Democrats getting elected in November. This was a blatant attempt by the Majority to use the people’s House to sway the November election in the Democrats' favor, at the expense of Americans’ constitutional right to free speech but at great favor to special interest union bosses.
"That Speaker Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Chris Van Hollen wrote a bill they proclaimed to be about transparency in total secret and riddled with back room deals is an ironic but sad testament to the way they’ve conducted business all year, and at the end of the day, they will be held accountable for that.”
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Big Government at the Grocery Store
Surprise!
Under the Democratic-controlled Congress, big government has found another way to reach into your pocket by placing minimum charges on debit cards.
Legislation has already passed in the Senate and is expected to soon pass in the House that includes a provision giving the Federal Reserve control of debit-card transaction fees rather than letting the free market decide.
While the amendment by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) to the Financial Reform bill is complicated, using terms like "interchange regulation," what that means for American consumers is:
- Placing minimum charges on debit cards -- not just credit cards -- at all stores.
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