A “friend” just forwarded this to me. It’s clearly going out to Dems still stupid enough to still be on the mailing list. Here’s my furious reaction.

If you get this despicable “plea” from Warner and the Democrats, I hope you’ll “respond appropriately.” I’d love to hear it.

The Gang of 6 announces they have reached a deal, and the President is praising it.

Anyone who thinks that Democrats have suddenly got religion on revenues and the need for tax hikes on the rich (or simply to let the Bush tax cuts expire entirely) should take a look at the Tax Day press release I just got from the Senate Dems.

Mark Warner’s Gang of Six is simply another attempt to gut Social Security, for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: it’s where the money is.

This is a major breaking story. The main reason that the lame duck session was so productive was that the rest of the legislative session was so UNPRODUCTIVE, because the Republicans were able to ran out the clock. Senate Democrats are taking a stand and saying, we cannot work this way anymore.

Hilariously, Warner and Chambliss, who want to bring forward a plan that cuts the budget deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, just both voted for a tax cut bill that, if the Bush tax rates are continued into perpetuity… add $4 trillion to the budget over the next ten years. This is why I thought that the tax cut deal had to be looked at as a whole. You could have basically eliminated the need for this Warner-Chambliss clown show simply by doing nothing.

Chris Dodd didn’t have many questions in yesterday’s hearing on the foreclosure crisis. But he did use the opportunity to call on Tim Geithner to convene the Financial Stability Oversight Council to prevent this crisis from blowing up the economy.

Liveblogging of the Senate Banking Committee hearing on foreclosure fraud continues. Senator Richard Shelby was actually pretty good, but then Sens. Mike Johanns and Bob Bennett went to some length to try to pretend the banksters weren’t doing what they were doing.

This hearing is the latest example of national policymakers getting involved in the foreclosure fraud issue. The Congressional Oversight Panel warning of the enormous risk from the failures of servicers was the first report of its kind at the federal level to take full measure of the situation, and this is the first Congressional hearing. Senators on the Democratic side like Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown are sure to press the bank representatives aggressively on why foreclosure mitigation programs have failed, and why they used false documents to evict people from their homes. The ranking member on the Republican side, Richard Shelby, wants to investigate failures at the major loan servicers.

If Democrats actually want to win political fights, they need to pose a stark choice between their own position and that of the Republicans.