One of the bright spots in the recent SOTU speech was about stopping subsidies to private student loan lenders. This practice is a huge ripoff for everybody, students and taxpayers alike. Cutting out the “middleman” could free up billions of dollars that could be loaned to students directly by government. Or we could just subsidize education, period. But that’s another rant.
Well, apparently loan industry lobbyists have brought the plan to a stop.
All together: ARRRRRGHHHH!
Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put a “blanket hold” on at least 70 of President Obama’s nominations, meaning the nominations can’t be voted on by the Senate until the Dems put together a 60-vote majority. Apparently the Senator is holding the nominations hostage until he gets two lucrative programs for Alabama: a $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers and an explosive device testing lab.
It’s not clear to me how one Senator could put a hold on nominations, but several sources are reporting this.
I may have more to say about this later. Right now I’m just feeling pure disgust.
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“Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put a “blanket hold†on at least 70 of President Obama’s nominations, meaning the nominations can’t be voted on by the Senate until the Dems put together a 60-vote majority”
This is just another example of Harry Reid’s lightweight ineffective style of “leadership” in the senate. If old Harry had any balls he would be in front of the cameras shouting about all these blocking procedures that are being used by the publicants (remember the phase up or down vote). But no Harry prefers to “work” behind the scenes and get absolutely nothing accomplished. The best thing that could happen to Obama is for Harry have his lunch handed to him in this falls midterms.
Pure disgust! My profanity blocker exploded under pressure and flooded my home with a torrent of mf’s. Why not just give the distinguished senator a check for $40B, and let the people of Alabama watch what he does with it. Let him wallow in being a blackmailer, then arrest him for his crime.
The sham of their genteel performance needs exposing. Let’s really turn this into a show – outwit the mf’s.
Shelby is such a horse’s @$$ …
“Apparently the Senator is holding the nominations hostage until he gets two lucrative programs for Alabama: a $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers and an explosive device testing lab.”
This doesn’t differ significantly from Ben Nelson’s Medicaid deal for Nebraska, except to note that according to the rightie narrative, Democrats are supposed to do suff like this and Repugs are not. The system appears hopelessly dysfunctional to me.
I was going to start off ” Well, honestly…” but then I remembered what I was writing about.
It takes ‘two’ for a bribe to be a bribe. Lobbying is to be expected. Doing the bidding of the lobbys is what arouses my “pure disgust.”
Then there’s the fillibuster ‘threat.’ As I see it, a bill won’t pass if the Thugs fillibuster nor will it pass if they don’t, given the recent Mass. vote. So why not opt for the fillibuster which just may show up the Thugs for the thugs they are. I suspect that their fellow thugs, the Dems, are using the ‘fillibuster’ gambit as an excuse to avoid enacting anything (which may hurt their chances of getting reelected, or displease their financial backers.)
As Nick Carraway said of Tom and Daisy Buchannan, “They’re a rotten bunch,” I say of Congress.
The way the Bush admin set up this current student loan program, it just guarantees the profits for the banks. Banks take no risk in lending b/c the Feds guarantee that they’ll get paid.
Didn’t Obama say during his recent Q&A session with the Repuglicans that “sunshine is the best disinfectant”. They need to lift the cover off that political cesspool and shine some light in on it. I’m a firm believer in the necessity for order and proper procedure to get things accomplished, but these current politicians have twisted the political process into a knot that is strangling the American people.
I won’t condemn Shelby for being the low life shake down artist he appears to be because in all probability he only using the tools he’s been given to work with to get his piece of the pie for his constituents. I think it’s the system that’s screwed up and is in major need of an overhaul.
This doesn’t differ significantly from Ben Nelson’s Medicaid deal for Nebraska
…or Mary Landrieu’s for La., but, all together now: IOKIYAR.
No fake phone repairmen turning up in Shelby’s office, no sir! They all suck, but only the Repugs get a free pass. None of them should.
Wow. One unarmed little coot from Alabama can demand tribute and single handedly overpower the House, the Senate and a U.S. President in one fell swoop. Must have been taking some lessons from Lieberman and Nelson.
There is something very, very wrong with any process that allows this kind of thing to happen. And something even more wrong with a government that allows a caper like this to succeed.
A little OT, not specifically about Shelby’s antics, but I think my favorite headline from the last few weeks is: Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in Senate. (h/t Avedon Carol).
What more big time money making scandal have the repugs conjured up to make money off the tax payers? they sure have been busy creating ways to .do it. i say scandle because thats what it is.
Please explain to me again the reason that the children of the “Proles” should get any education?
Education should be for “The Elite.” Their pure “gene’s” are better than our ”unwashed jean’s!” Isn’t this obvious to everyone? Why should you have people without pedigree’s, GETTING any degree’s?
As for putting putiing a hold on nominee’s, uhm, why don’t I recall reading about any of this being done by Democrat’s when Shrub was nominating some of the brush that he cut on his ‘ranch?’
Oh yeah, I forgot: We’re Democrat’s. We try to get along…
Uhm, boy’s and girl’s in the legislative branch, the one basically controlled by the Democrat’s, it’s time to NOT trade your Filet-mignon sandwich for the PB&J being offered by the bully’s on the the right. BTW – they pissed on it, so there’s even LESS reason to think about it. They may tell you that the PB&J is more nutricious, but don’t believe them. Please, DEAR GOD, DON’T BELIEVE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You have a pretty big majority riight now. why would you trade a Mickey Mantle card for a Ron Swaboda?
IDIOT’S!
This doesn’t differ significantly from Ben Nelson’s Medicaid deal for Nebraska
Well, except that Ben Nelson settled for a couple hundred million, whereas Shelby is going for several billion. So… A bit of a difference…
-me
The banks taking a cut of the government money for education is no different from the cut insurance companies take for financing health care. Yet eliminating that with a single payer system is OFF the table. Insurance companies still get a cut of the money you and I spend on health care, both the ‘private’insurance and now medicare and medicaid. Gezz what rip off.
I can’t discuss Shelby using proper English. How on god’s green earth do they get by with this sh. . .t . Well I warned you.
Barak Obama is the best communitcator to occupy the White House since… I’m not sure. He’s better than Reagan – and that’s going some. I was too young to appreciate JFK.. But why the hell don’t we bring back the FRD tradition of the fireside chat, a 20 or 30 minute ‘chat’ on whatever was on the President’s mind. Sometimes it would be a kiick in the butt for backsliding democrats, or the bright light on a clown like Shelby.
“Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put a “blanket hold†on at least 70 of President Obama’s nominations…
What’s wrong with all of you Liberal “people?”
We’ve go to do whatever we can to stop the Communist, Socialist, Fascist, Racist, Mao-moa-ing Stalin, Castro, Leninist, Chicago Islamofascist, ACORN Nazi furriner!!!
So, it’s not a “BLANKET HOLD,” it’s a GROUP HUG!!!
Kumbaya, My Lord, kumbaya…
That picture of Shelby that is posted by Ezra Klein shows Klein’s lower lip in a snarl just like Dick Cheney’s, but less pronounced. What’s that all about? I think that’s a cool way to use facial expression to intimidate people, just like a pirate… Show them a canine and a couple of incisors by way of a mini growl and they’ll get the message you’re not one to be fucked with. Argggh Matey! Dead men tell no tales.
MLK: And Alabama with its vicious racism.
Not much has changed down there since the ’63 “I have a dream” speech. Really, every time you go into a voting booth they should have a picture of this guy and David Vitter in the booth with you to show you what you are supporting when you vote Republican. I get why some people, especially men, are pushed away from the Dems because they seem like a bunch of week kneed pussys (example: Obama, Reid), but come on, do you really want a country where Shelby has a voice in what it looks like?
First you put every roadblock in the way of government functioning — by refusing to allow competent appointees to get in there and do their jobs. Then you refuse to vote on legislation that reforms government functions. Finally, you proclaim “government doesn’t work” and get elected by the people you’ve shafted and for whom — surprise! — government didn’t work because their Republican representatives made sure neither the people nor the laws were in place that would allow it to work.
Some (all?) Republicans, Steve Benen writes, “would rather have an inefficient private system than a superior public system for purely ideological reasons.”
Blame the “Kansas” syndrome. There really are people out there who vote for politicians most likely to give them the most grief.
…been following this one for a long time.
I personally know several people for whom the interest rate differential resulting from the apparent need for private lenders to tap into the money stream means the difference between being able to attend school or not….talk about the tail wagging the dog.
The root idea of student loans was that there is a benefit to society (i.e. all the rest of us) when we have more doctors and other skilled people.
Evidently it is bank and financial industry profit that trumps everything. Just another result of the corporate takeover of our society. The downward spiral will not be abated.
Whose government? From what ive read so far it belongs to the lobyist and the repugs