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Writer's pictureHowie Klein

Who Could Buy Into John Kennedy's McCarthyite Smear? 5 Corrupt Conservative Democrats



Today is likely to be a slow news day and I'll probably take most of the day off from blogging. I did want to mention one thing though that I forgot to bring up yesterday. Remember the McCarthyite line of questioning of Saule Omarova by Louisiana Trumpist scumbag John Kennedy at a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week? "I don’t know whether to call you 'professor' or 'comrade,' the right-wing red-baiter said to Biden’s nominee as comptroller of the currency.


At the time, L.A. Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote that Kennedy was using his phony Gomer Pyle shtik "to advance one of the uglier attacks on a nominee in recent memory. Its theme is that Omarova, who is a law professor at Cornell but was born and raised in the former Soviet Union, is some sort of secret communist bent on overturning the American way of banking. Omarova’s upbringing has emerged as a principal concern for Republicans like Kennedy, and a small handful of congressional Democrats, because they’re fronting for the banking industry. The banks want no one like Omarova in place as comptroller. There are two reasons. (Leave aside that Omarova would be the first woman or person of color to lead the agency.) One is that she’s likely to shake up the agency, a banking regulator that has been so thoroughly captured by the industry that it serves as little more than a bankers’ fifth column embedded in the executive branch. The other is that having studied American banking for the better part of three decades, she knows more about the industry than most bankers."


At the committee hearing, Elizabeth Warren had a nice response to the bribe-taking Kennedy in the former a question for the nominee. "Professor Omarova, I know that the giant banks object to your willingness to enforce the law to keep our system safe and that you may cut into big bank profits. So the giant banks and their Republican buddies have declared war on you. The attacks on your nomination have been vicious and personal-- we’ve just seen it. Sexism, racism, pages straight out of Joe McCarthy’s 1950s red scare tactics-- it is all there on full display. Welcome to Washington in 2021."


Yesterday was a slow news day too-- perfect for 5 slimy bank allies, in this case corrupt conservative Democrats-- to kill the nomination. Regular DWT readers can probably guess the culprits, but these are them with their bankster bribes since 1990:

  • Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)- $2,895,009

  • Frackenlooper (CO)- $2,030,541

  • Mark Warner (VA)- $6,213,260

  • Jon Tester (MT)- $3,772,125

  • Mark Kelly (AZ)- $3,082,265

Axios reported that the 5 senators' offices either declined to comment or did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Yorumlar


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