McConnell (R-Ky) managed to get 41 GOP senators to vote against even DEBATING the financial reform bill. This, after his private meeting with Sen. Cornyn and a group of 25 Wall Street executives, most of them hedge fund managers, a week earlier.
As a financial reform bill starts to take shape in Washington, two key lawmakers came to New York City last week to explain what it means for Wall Street, and how financial executives might help prevent some of its least market-friendly aspects from becoming law by electing more Republicans, FOX Business Network has learned.
About 25 Wall Street executives, many of them hedge fund managers, sat down for a private meeting Thursday afternoon with two of the most powerful Republican lawmakers in Congress: Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and John Cornyn, the senior senator from Texas who runs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, one of the primary fundraising arms of the Republican Party.
The undercurrent of the gathering, however, was undeniably political. [......]
It was revealed earlier in the week that McConnell's talking points came directly from a memo created by GOP pollster, Frank Luntz, and are nearly all completely false.
McConnell's hometown paper published a scathing editorial titled "McConnell to big banks' rescue". The Lexington Herald-Leader accuses McConnell of pandering to Wall Street executives ,as well as his repetition of the false talking points created by Luntz.
McConnell's statements are perfectly calibrated to inflame the public. He insists the bill would "allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks."
Their resemblance to the truth is another matter.
The provision that McConnell claims would allow endless bailouts emerged from a bipartisan collaboration by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn.
Warner, who learned a thing or two about capitalism as a successful dot.com entrepreneur before becoming Virginia's governor, told The Washington Post: "It appears that the Republican leader either doesn't understand or chooses not to understand the basic underlying premise of what this bill puts in place."
McConnell, it should be remembered, voted for the bailout of the big investment banks in the fall of 2008, when it was the only alternative to global economic meltdown.
We have read that the Republicans have a plan for financial reform, but McConnell isn't talking up any solutions, just trashing the other side's ideas with no respect for the truth.
While the intricacies of financial regulation are complicated, McConnell's calculus is pretty obvious. [......]
Last week the DNC created an ad to refute McConnell's false talking points.
