Atrocity of the day/updated/corrected

The atrocity of the day is that Blue Dog Senate Democrats voted down mortgage relief which, in addition to helping keep people in their homes, would have also enjoined DoJ to prosecute fraud and opened up credit for us hoi polloi (here’s the roll call). This is what I sent my people in Congress:

I am writing to urge that, for the good of both the Congress and the nation, public financing of elections be given a high priority for passage in this session.

Very frankly, what is going on in the Congress looks to the ordinary citizen like organized corruption. When Senator Durbin said that “the banks own the place,” he was saying what we feel. Did the people of this country want to defeat S.896, a measure that would have provided mortgage relief? No, it was the banks that wanted defeat.

And—even if the vote was tainted by campaign contributions—was is in the best interests of the nation? No: the economic downturn is driven by foreclosures and the fear that they engender. This vote will inevitably lead to more damage to the economy.

The Congress faces great pressures in raising funds. The resistance of Republicans to reforming this corrupt system verges on the fanatical. It therefore falls on the shoulders of those who believe in clean government—and I count you among them—to force the issue.

All 40 Republicans voted Nay. ElevenTwelve Democrats joined them: Baucus, Michael Bennet, Byrd, Carper, Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, Pryor, ::cough:: Specter, Tester.

Friday Cat Blogging

The H-1B Program

Boo hoo hoo, American banks that took bailout money must be forced to — GASP! — hire Americans first, rather than the cheaper H-1B workers whose labor they’ve been exploiting for years.

The H-1B program needs to be reformed, if not eliminated altogether. Right now the H-1Bs are little more than indentured servants, allowed to stay in America only to work for a single company, and only so long as they are employed by that company. Which doesn’t help the H-1Bs or the American workers whose jobs they take, but it sure benefits the CEOs. As recently as March of 2008, when the economy was already showing signs of stress (and when Microsoft was seeing the full bitter flowering of the poisoned fruit that was Vista), Bill Gates was asking Congress for more H-1B visas.