An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Archive for 16 July 2010
Weasel Time
Early Voting
Today starts early voting for Tennessee, running through 7/31. This is for the 8/5 primary, so you have plenty of time, and no flippin’ excuses for NOT voting. If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain! If you are in Hardin County, the Pickwick Republican Women will be more than happy to give you a ride if you need one, and no pressure to vote for anyone. We don’t care if you are a Republican or Democrat, we just want you to exercise your Constitutional right to vote!
For your county, click here, click on your county, and find out where you go for voting early.
Candidates for Governor:
Mike McWherter (D) – Businessman & Son of Gov. Ned McWherter
Bill Haslam (R) – Knoxville Mayor, Businessman & Minor League Baseball Team Owner
Joe Kirkpatrick (R) – Marketing Executive, GOP Activist & ’06 Candidate
Ron Ramsey (R) – State Senate Speaker, Lt. Governor, Ex-State Rep., Businessman & Surveyor
Zach Wamp (R) – Congressman & Ex-Real Estate Broker
Howard Switzer (Green) – Architect, Ex-State Party Co-Chair & ’06 Nominee
Bayron Binkley (Independent) – Real Estate Broker
Brandon Dodds (Independent) – Optometrist & Gun Rights Activist
Samuel Duck (Independent)
David Gatchell (Independent) – “None of the Above” Ballot Activist & Frequent Candidate
June Griffin (Independent) – Minister, Retired Dental Lab Owner & Frequent Candidate
Toni Hall (Independent)
Floyd Knois (Independent)
Boyce McCall (Independent)
Donald McFolin (Independent)
James Reesor (Independent) – Self-Proclaimed “Crazy Man”, ’74 Candidate & ’99 Nashville Mayor Candidate
Thomas Smith II (Independent)
Carl “Twofeathers” Whitaker (Independent) – Native American Indian Movement Chief & ’02/’06 Candidate
Since I live in the 7th District, I don’t know a lot of about the other districts. Marsha Blackburn doesn’t have a primary opponent. The best I can find out, there’s only one Dem running, Greg Rabidoux, and he doesn’t seem to have an opponent either. If I have this wrong, let me know, and I can fix it. 
My state Rep is Vance Dennis, and he doesn’t have a primary opponent, not in the primary or the general.
As for the rest of the state, well, there are some good candidates. I’d highly recommend Charlotte Bergman in the 9th District!!
Creating Jobs….The Gubmint Way
The Lawyers and Lobbyists Full Employment Act
The Foundry
Without spending a single dime, the Obama administration did more yesterday to create jobs for the U.S. economy than it has throughout its entire existence. With the single stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that set in motion 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies. Each of the 243 rule-makings will employ hundreds of banking lobbyists as they try to shape what the final actual laws will look like. And when the rules are finally written, thousands of lawyers will bill millions of hours as the richest incumbent financial firms that caused the last crisis figure out how to game the new system. Yesterday, the Washington law firm Jones Day snapped up the Securities and Exchange Commission head enforcement division lawyer, and J.P. Morgan Chase, one of the biggest U.S. banks by assets, assigned more than 100 teams to examine the legislation. University of Massachusetts political science professor Thomas Ferguson tells The Christian Science Monitor:
By delegating so much to the regulators, Congress is inviting everyone interested in the outcome to make more campaign contributions, as they intervene in the regulatory process to influence the regulators. Nothing is settled. It’s a gold mine for members of Congress.
So if the richest big banks, lawyers, lobbyists and Congress were the big winners yesterday, who are the losers? Small banks, entrepreneurs and you.
Smaller community banks do not have the same resources that the Goldman Sachs of the world do to hire armies of lawyers and lobbyists to shape and comply with new regulations. The cost of compliance will eat up a much larger share of small bank revenue. Jim MacPhee, CEO of Kalamazoo County State Bank in Michigan and chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), told USA Today: “We weren’t part of the subprime (mortgage) meltdown. Why throw more regulations at us?”
Entrepreneurs take a double hit in the Dodd-Frank bill. First, by forcing banks to raise more capital it will now be more difficult for them to make new loans for small businesses. But more important is the regulatory threat for new products. Across the world mobile device and telecommunications firms are beginning to compete against credit card companies and banks to reshape how consumers buy products and manage their finances. Will the Dodd-Frank Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even allow these services to come to market? Will cell phone firms have to be regulated exactly like financial firms? Nobody knows the answer to these questions. Here is what we do know: it will be the banks and telco firms with the best lawyers and lobbyists – not the best entrepreneurs – that come out on top in this battle.
Then there is what the Dodd-Frank does not do: it does nothing to stop future government bailouts. Instead, it makes the TARP bailout system permanent. The bill’s “orderly liquidation” process empowers regulators to seize any firm they deem a threat to our financial system and liquidate them. These powers are subject to insufficient judicial review and do nothing to ensure that the firms’ creditors won’t receive 100% of their irresponsibly lent money back in future taxpayer funded bailouts. And speaking of taxpayer-funded bailouts, the bill does nothing to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose activities were instrumental to the financial crisis.
Back in 1994, Jonathan Rauch wrote in his book Government’s End: “Economic thinkers have recognized for generations that every person has two ways to become wealthier. One is to produce more, the other is to capture more of what others produce. … Washington looks increasingly like a public-works jobs program for lawyers and lobbyists, a profit center for professionals who are in business for themselves.” The Dodd-Frank bill is the perfect extension of Washington as “a public-works jobs program for lawyers and lobbyists.” Instead of encouraging the U.S. economy to invest in engineers, technology and new products, it requires firms to invest in lawyers and lobbyists just to stay alive. It will do nothing to help create new wealth or new net jobs in the economy, but will transfer more wealth to lobbying and law firms in Washington, D.C.
Glenn Beck 07/15/10
I’m going to interject here, and flat out state it….BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS A LYING SACK OF MALE BOVINE EXCREMENT! And every single person who voted for that bill is guilty of the murder of innocent babies at the expense of the taxpayer. America has truly lost her soul.
