Moonhowlings

 Joe Biden should be huffy.  This young pup questions the use of the language?   To answer his question, YES. 

Crime incidence is clearly and measurably linked to number of available police officers.  The more trained officers, the lower the crime rate is shown in case after case, in community after community throughout the United States. 

According to the Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden doubled down Wednesday on his charge that rape and murder will rise if Congress fails to pass the American Jobs Act.

Minutes after addressing a firefighters rally in a Senate office building to push for passage of (at least) a $35 billion provision that would pay for the hiring of hundreds of thousands of police officers, teachers and firefighters, Biden was challenged by a reporter over his crime claims.

Read more…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Damn, he still has that old Clinton MOJO. It pays to listen to Bill. He certainly proved it during his presidency. And he did know how to meet people half way. Nuff said. 

From Huffington Post:

Clinton gave the package his full-throated endorsement, even while noting that he opposes the extension of upper-income tax cuts – though he himself will benefit from it.

“I personally believe this is a good deal and the best he could have gotten under the circumstances,” Clinton said, urging fellow Democrats to support it.

“If I was in office now, I would have done what the president has done,” he said.

Clinton, whose focus on the economy helped get him elected in 1992, said he spends about an hour a day studying up on it and trying to figure out what to do about it. He said the proposal to trim Social Security taxes is the “single most effective tax cut” to support economic activity and create jobs. “I expect it to lower the unemployment rate and keep us going,” he said.

“In my opinion, this is a good bill and I hope that my fellow Democrats will support it,” Clinton said. “I think this is a much, much better agreement than would be reached were we to wait until January.”

So is Bill right or wrong?  Is this the best deal President Obama will get?

From Marketwatch:

 

 

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — After months of trying to get Republican support for tougher regulations to prevent the next global financial crisis, Sen. Chris Dodd has decided to move ahead with or without bipartisan backing.

Dodd desperately wants a financial reform bill as a capstone to his 36-year career in Washington. But his lengthy negotiations with his Republican counterparts Richard Shelby and Bob Corker had produced little agreement, just headlines.

Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced Thursday that he would present his own bill to his committee on Monday. The banking committee — with 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans — will likely vote on the bill next week.

Dodd’s decision to abandon an endless quest to reach a bipartisan deal may make it more likely that Congress will actually enact legislation this year to rein in the worst of the abuses that helped lead the global economy to the brink.

The more Dodd negotiated with Shelby and Corker, the more watered-down the bill became. Each compromise with the Republicans made it less likely that the House of Representatives — remember them? — would go along.

The last straw may have been when Corker demanded that any consumer protection agency would not only have to be toothless, but it would also have to be run by the Federal Reserve, the omnipotent agency that utterly failed to protect consumers, the banks or the economy during the housing bubble.

The path to landing a final bill on President Barack Obama’s desk will still be complicated. Dodd will have to clear the bill out of his own committee and then find at least one Republican in the 100-member Senate to help him overcome the inevitable filibuster. And then he’ll have to compromise with the House.

By all accounts, the Republicans negotiated in good faith. But there were some issues that just couldn’t be compromised. It is time to act.

It seems like regulations are desperately needed.   I don’t ever want another September 2008 again, where we all sit there and watch whatever we have accumulated melt away before our eyes.  I don’t want the rich to get richer and the middle income folks to become poor folks, often at our expense.  This is one reason that the Republicans have earned the moniker ‘The Party of NO.  

Dodd has nothing to lose.  He isn’t coming back.  I thank him for sticking with this one.  He was also offered Kennedy’s chair.  He refused it because he wanted to deal with campaign finance.  It’s time for Democrats and Republicans to do the right thing and pass some reform, even if in incremental steps.