Live blogging of the House Oversight Committee Hearing on Cybersecruity. Rep. Darrel Issa being himself. Can you say “Viper”?

Arkansas was a loss, but the effort was worth it for the ripples it created and its potential as a model for the future. [I can talk about a lot of these issues in my 5:00 PM EST Sunday FDL book salon conversation on my Soul of a Citizen book]

Ryan Grim and Sam Stein have an excellent piece on the coordinated efforts of various groups to support Bill Halter’s challenge to Blanche Lincoln. It represents the evolution of the efforts behind the Ned Lamont and Donna Edwards races, and now that the election is over, deserves some discussion.

The commentary regarding the Lincoln/Halter race continues, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. While the commentariat and a former president mistakenly projected Lincoln as a pro-labor Norma Rae, Blanche Lincoln sent Norma Rae’s job to China. I think Norma would be delighted by the new possibilities.

I appreciated the opportunity to speak on today’s topic at Personal Democracy Forum 2010: “Can the internet fix politics?” Which raises the obvious question – who broke it?

Let me mention here what an honor it is to follow Newt Gingrich…

When asked about about the latest twist in the financial regulatory reform, where Lincoln’s “tough” derivatives bill got targeted for watering down on the night of her election, AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman replied, “Her timing is fascinating…She came to her position on this in the midst of a primary fight.”

Yes, what a coincidence.

People aren’t stupid. They understand what’s happening. Yesterday the House of Lords got a giant kick in the teeth from a public hungry for accountability. Contrary to the wisdom of the punditocracy, the country isn’t moving to the right. It’s the corporatists who are going down.

Blanche Lincoln is not in the “center” of anything but K Street, and most of her money will have to be spent making people forget where it came from.

Obama, Rahm and the DSCC will do everything they can to make sure Lincoln stays in office. It’s going to be an ugly 2 months until the primary, but because liberal interest groups stormed out of the veal pen and marshaled their resources, at least Halter has a fighting chance.

Donate to Bill Halter’s campaign

Blanche is blasting Halter for having out-of-state support in his bid to unseat her.

Is she going to forgo support from outside the state? Do Barack Obama and the DSCC hail from Arkansas too? How about her donors at Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Monsanto, Pfizer, Koch Industries — or the lobbyists at Patton Boggs, Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, and Akin Gump?

I guess the lesson learned is that in Blanche’s world, “out of state” + powerful = good, “out of state” + grassroots = bad.

Donate to Halter’s campaign here.

Talk about burying the lede. The NYTimes has run a story which purports to be about the plans by the Treasury Department to pressure banks to do more to renegotiate delinquent mortgages. It has all sorts of blather from Treasury about using “embarrassment” as tool to get bank to do what they were given $75 Billion dollars to do under the federal Making Home Affordable Program.

The real story though, does not come out until the very bottom of the article. The real story is the continuing fraud being perpetrated on both the Government and consumers by the banks and other “mortgage servicers.” Predatory lending has an ugly tail end.

Some lawyers who defend homeowners against foreclosure assert that mortgage companies are merely stalling, using trial loan modifications as an opportunity to extract a few more dollars from borrowers who would otherwise make no payments.