Here are all the Senate representatives who have decided they WANT you to be taken advantage of by the credit card industry by not putting an interest rate cap at 15% :

Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagan (D-NC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (D-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Warner (D-VA)
Wicker (R-MS)

38 Republicans voted NAY on this bill, meaning 38 Republicans are owned by the Credit Card industry and the banks, just as Dick Durbin suggested:

“…the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”

Some of the usual suspects voting Nay here include the corrupt Richard Shelby, David Vitter, Mitch McConnell, John McCain (just an idea of who he’d favor if he became our President), Sam Brownback, and every Lobbyist’s favorite Senator, Orrin Hatch.

Not a SINGLE Republican voted for this bill.

Now, I’m not going to exclude some of the democrats who make up this list. Nearly half of them voted against it as well, including Joe Lieberman (big surprise), Evan Bayh, Arlen Specter (real prize he’s become), John Tester, and Mary Landrieu.

According to Bernie Sanders, the conduct of the credit card companies and banks would land others in court. 1/3 of card holders have interest rates above 20%. Some are even as high as 40%. But when you have such a powerful lobby in the pocket of the entire Republican party (and some in the Democrats camp as well), this becomes business as usual.

From Sanders (Huffington Post):

“When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available,” said Mr. Sanders, who noted credit unions are limited to 15 percent. “They are engaged in loan-sharking.”

Nice going, pricks. We’ll remember you when election time comes. Thanks for the support.

Politics, Verbal Paintball credit card interest rates, john mccain, mitch mcconnell, republicans who vote against you, Richard Shelby, senators owned by banks, senators owned by lobbyists

From CNN, two quotes from two stubborn, ignorant assholes who are STILL on the wrong side of this argument:

Frankly, federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research can bring on embryo harvesting, perhaps even human cloning that occurs,” Eric Cantor said. “We don’t want that. That shouldn’t be done. That’s wrong.”

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, said the Bush policy imposed ethical limits on science.
“My basic tenet here is I don’t think we should create life to enhance life and to do research and so forth,” Shelby said. “I know that people argue there are other ways. I think we should continue our biomedical research everywhere we can, but we should have some ethics about it.”

In the amount of time that George W. Bush had strangled funding for embryonic stem cell research, we could have found cures for debilitating illnesses such as Parkinsons, founded treatments for everything from alzheimers, cancers and other maladies, and possibly have been able to create limbs for those war veterans that have come home from Bush’s war without them.

It’s mind-boggling the advances we would have seen in the past eight years had funding been made a available and strains of available embryos not been essentially “outlawed.”

George Bush and these narrow-minded, wrong-on-every-count-group-of-lock-step-assholes have as much blood on their hands in their obstruction of this measure as they’ve had with the Iraq war. The thing is about this - we KNOW what the potential has been here. Squashing it due to the religious beliefs of a few is truly criminal.

Countless families would not have had to see a loved one go so soon.

Countless parents could have held their sick children a little bit longer.

Countless friends would not have had to have seen their close friends pass away because the cure or treatment for their diseases were a decade away when they could have been right now.

Embryo farms. Cloning. Nice scare tactics from people who do nothing but that. I am forever amazed at the brazen ignorance of this small minority of simple-minded people. While I do not hope ill will on anyone, it’s likely someday soon many of them may find themselves facing a situation that could have been better and less emotionally or physically painful had they approved funding for this. It is, sadly, the only time the stubborn learn when they are wrong. It’s ashame it ALWAYS comes too late for the rest of us.

Current News, Politics embryonic stem cells, Eric Cantor, George W. Bush, republican ignorance, Richard Shelby, stem cell research

From the Cullman Times:

In front of a packed room, Shelby explained how he was a staunch proponent of fiscal responsibility and that he had opposed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed into law earlier this week.

“If we (republicans) were in control, I would have been chairman of the banking committee … and I would have killed some bills,” Shelby said with a laugh.

When Richard Shelby opens his Jack Nicholson-joker-like mouth he spews the kind of garbage typical of someone who’s begrudgingly lost and is absolutely, completely unwilling to get along - or work with - the elected winner. Unfortunately, our financial well-being is in the balance.

I’ve made no secret of my disdain for this narrow-minded, childish partisan asshole. In truth, he’s a real piece of work. A former Bush lapdog, former member of the banking and Senate intelligence committees, Shelby is always on the wrong side of the argument and sometimes the wrong side of the law as well.

Regarding the stimulus bill, he sides against the taxpayers in offering no valid alternatives other than more tax cuts and a suggestion of banking regulations which Obama has already included. Take, for example, this exchange:

After noting that since previous administrations have already placed the country more than $10 trillion in debt, local resident Matthew Glover asked Shelby what would be the problem with another $1 trillion debt from Obama’s stimulus package.

“He said some stuff about dividends … but he never really answered my question,” Glover said.

No. And he never will, Matthew. Because what he also didn’t tell you was that those “previous” administrations included our last one, of which - with the exception of one vote (170: S 1307) he was lockstep all the way with the Bush Administration on all the key votes of the last five years.
What’s more, he still feels the need - at this late date - to keep false rumors alive:

Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.

“Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.”

This is not a new statement by him, either. He’s been using this line for the last few months.

Also, lets not forget his treasonous act of leaking information about NSA activities:

From Washington Post,
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.

He also refused to take a lie detector test.

And, lastly, his well-known support for the Iraq war. It helps when you know the players in that war personally:

From Bob’s Links & Rants:

Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), supporting the Iraq war resolution in October, 2002:

That photo is from Joseph Wilson's The Politics of Truth

“I support this resolution because the threat posed by the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein is real, immediate, and growing.

The threat is real because Saddam possesses conventional, chemical and biological weapons. He is doing everything in his power to acquire the means to construct and field nuclear weapons.

The threat is real because Saddam has used his conventional and chemical weapons to attack his neighbors and his own people.”

So tell me, Senator, why were you holding hands with Saddam just three months after his chemical attack on Halabja?

Oh, how I wish someone would remove all the toilet paper from the bathroom before this guy takes his next dump.

Current News, Politics, War Bush administration, republican blockers, republican lies, republican losers, Richard Shelby

President Obama made it very clear in his first-ever press conference that republican politics of old had no place in this new era of government.

“As we learned very clearly and conclusively over the last eight years, tax cuts alone can’t solve all our economic problems, especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans. We have tried that strategy time and time again, and it has only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now.”

Meanwhile, mental midgets like Richard Shelby yesterday called for the entire bill to be scrapped. Just as he had on the earlier TARP bill, he has decided to take Bob Dole’s old role of obstruction at all costs. The President made it crystal clear that the old conservative theories of stimulating the economy or doing nothing were unacceptable, the arguments of neanderthals still debating the necessity of the same type of programs during Roosevelt. 

I think Obama did himself a great service tonight by explaining to the many how and why this bill will work, the steps being taken to ensure it’s success, and the logic behind the approach. He also addressed that tired republican response suggesting all democrats are fiscally irresponsible, slather every program in pork, particularly this one. He called them on their lies and also didn’t pull punches when it came to pointing out the responsibility of our representatives as a whole.

“I can’t afford to see Congress play the usual political games.”

Good for him. I believe at the other end of this national crisis we should hopefully find ourselves with universal healthcare, an economy headed north and a political system that finds the old way of politics disgraceful. What a pleasure it is to have someone in office who actually gives a damn about the honesty of our system. Clinton worked within it, accepting it. Bush took us down it’s dark path, taking advantage of every vulnerability in the system, destroying what little confidence we had in government post-Nixon and creating a cynicism not seen since that time.

I raise my glass in hopes that the republicans of old find themselves in the wilderness long enough for them to starve an ideological death there and, hopefully, be reborn into the kind of party that doesn’t see government as a means to their own enrichment.

Politics Obama press conference, republican lies, Richard Shelby, stimulus, stimulus pork

From CNN:

Leading Republicans warned Sunday that the Obama administration’s $800 billion-plus economic stimulus effort will lead to what one called a “financial disaster.”

“The country will “pay dearly” if it executes the president’s stimulus plans”, Sen. Richard Shelby says. “Everybody on the street in America understands that,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee. “This is not the right road to go. We’ll pay dearly.”

Shelby, of Alabama, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the package and efforts to shore up the struggling banking system will put the United States on “a road to financial disaster.”

Wasn’t this the sour-faced asshole who held up the first stimulus plan at the last minute, thus plunging the dow, creating more instability and allowing the first intrusion of the mindset that government cooperation on the economy “can’t” work?

Well, the Obama White House responded better than I could:

“Those who presided over the last eight years — the eight years that brought us to the point where we inherit trillions of dollars of deficit, an economy that’s collapsing more rapidly than at any time in the last 50 years — don’t seem to me in a strong position to lecture about the lessons of history,” Summers told ABC’s “This Week.”

I’m not stupid. I know this is a game these guys play - you gain a little ground, they gain a little ground. It’s just the hypocrisy that drives me insane. All these folks on the right would have supported Bush straight down the line had this been his proposal four years ago. The only difference is it would be chock full of overflowing pork.

Now they are the party of “conservation” again?

Summers is right, however. The republicans have sunk this country. We needed great ideas from them before, not now. As such, they don’t deserve to claim the high-ground here.

Verbal Paintball Congress republicans, Larry Summers, Richard Shelby, stimulus disaster