Like their animated, transforming counterparts, the RepubliCONS are a study in advanced camoflauge and subterfuge. Masquerading as a "populous" defense league, they once again convinced an ignorant citizenry to vote them back into office. And now, in just over a month after being sworn in, they've transformed back into CorporaCONS; re-establishing themselves as a protection racket for an entrenched corporatocracy. In a spectacular display of corporate sponsorship the CorporaCONS have already exposed their true agenda and even the supposed "grassroots" candidates, now turned congressmen, have sworn allegiance to the billionaires that "brung-them." From the Seattle Times :
The billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch no longer sit outside Washington's political establishment, isolated by their uncompromising conservatism. Instead, they are now at the center of Republican power, a change most evident in the new makeup of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Wichita-based Koch Industries and its employees formed the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the panel, ahead of giants like Exxon Mobil, contributing $279,500 to 22 of the committee's 31 Republicans, and $32,000 to five Democrats.
Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration's proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group's separate advertising and grass-roots activity during the 2010 campaign...
Cloaked in the guise of an "everyman" the RepubliCONS promised a return to "fiscal conservatism" and "strict constitutionalism." They even got a contrived "grassroots" Tea Party movement to back them. Dressed up in late 1700's period costumes these founding father look-a-likes whipped up the usual GOP bigots, bible belt whack jobs, and John Birch extremists. All of it intended towards getting their minions to vote RepubliCONs back into office. And now, back in office, the founding father disguises have faded away, the jeans and plaid shirts have disappeared, and the rolled up sleeves have become cuffs wrapped in Brooks Brother suits.
The CorporaCONs are back and already they're aiding and abetting the very corporate power that sank a global economy. Thats right the same Wall Street corporate power that cost millions of middle class citizens their jobs and stole billions from world economies in order to enrich themselves. Per usual the CoporaCONs disguise their corrupt actions under faux concern for the overall federal debt. Just look at how the protection scam works. As the Boston Globe Reports :
Representative Barney Frank lashed out today at Republican efforts to cut federal spending to 2008 levels, saying the move would deal a crippling blow to regulators' ability to oversee financial markets and implement the overhaul of financial regulations passed last year. Frank warned that not only does funding need to be maintained at current levels, it needs to be increased so the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading can hire hundreds of employees to issue and enforce a slew of regulations under the new law.
"I had hoped it wouldn’t be this way," Frank said today at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
Republican Representative Scott Garrett of New Jersey, chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, responded in a statement that "a dramatic spending increase to fund the SEC and CFTC, as envisioned by the authors of the Dodd-Frank legislation, would further the mindset that our nation’s problems can be solved with more spending, not more efficiency."
“During our country’s current debt crisis, all branches of government – including Congress – have to tighten their belts and find ways to make their money go further," said Garrett who also chairs the budget task force of House conservative caucus Republican Study Committee. "Government agencies must learn to operate effectively within their budgets like American families and businesses do every day as we work to get our fiscal house in order.”
Frank, who co-authored the financial overhaul law that bears his name, said the amount of money needed to fund the overhaul is minuscule compared to the federal budget. And he pointed to a caveat in the rollback of spending levels that exempts security spending.
"We're arguing the security of the average American was far more endangered by the financial crisis than by a lot of other things that our military does," Frank said.
Frank, the ranking minority member on the Financial Services Committee, said this afternoon that Garrett's position "reinforces my fear that Republicans are attempting to cripple regulation by failing to fund it.
"The budgets he wants them to operate within are budgets which pre-date financial regulation, pre-date regulation of derivatives, and pre-date investor protection," he said.
Once again the RepubliCONs have managed to get ignorant citizens to vote against their own economic well being while helping to further enrich an ever expanding aristocracy. At this rate, the New Decepticons might yet gain world domination.
