The "Dodd financial reform" bill being considered by the Senate will make it illegal for 99.6 percent of the population to invest in needed new and promising start-up companies.  At the same time, the bill ensures that the 33 largest banks, which control 92 percent of all bank assets, will be required to purchase more federal government debt before giving loans to businesses and individuals. Quite simply, the government is continuing to practice financial fascism. The new financial reform bill will make it illegal to invest in a new venture or start-up company for anyone who does not have a liquid net worth of $2.2 million or an annual income of roughly $450,000 if single or $675,000 if married - which rules out all but fewer than 1 percent of the population. If this passes and is signed into law, Congress and the president will be saying to the American people, "Ninety-nine-plus percent of you are too stupid to know how to invest your own money." They think the rest of us are as irresponsible as they are. What right do the financial fascists in Washington, who created the world's biggest financial Ponzi schemes (i.e., Social Security and Medicare) and the largest unsustainable debt in history, have to tell more than 99 percent of the rest of us what we can and cannot invest in?

Jack Kelly asked this week:  Are there no limits to Democrat corruption?  The corollary question is:  Is there no end to Democrat fascism?  Day by day, the evidence mounts:  the answers are:  no limits, no end. Prominent political analyst Michael Barone's term for fascism is Gangster Government, and accuses Zero and the Democrats of instituting it.  The Dodd Bailout Bill of "financial reform" is a perfect example.  He notes: "Republicans have been accurately attacking the Dodd bill for authorizing bailouts of big Wall Street firms and giving them unfair advantages over small competitors. They might want to add that it authorizes Gangster Government -- the channeling of vast sums from the politically unprotected to the politically connected." The extent of this can be seen in this five page list of exemptions or "carve-outs" in the 1,400 page Bailout Bill. As TTPer "Rockymount" observes on the Forum, the Bailout Bill will place "the President and his Czars in complete control of this nation's financial system."  Can't get a lot more fascist than that.  The Dems, though, disagree.  They think they're  just getting started.

A century ago, if you had told typical citizens of Argentina (which at that time was enjoying the fourth-highest per capita income in the world) that it would decline to become just the 76th richest nation on a per capita basis in 2010, they probably would not have found it believable. They might have responded, "This could not happen; we are a nation rich in natural resources, with a great climate for agriculture. Our people are well educated and largely descended from European stock. We have property rights, the rule of law and an open free-market economy." But the fact is, Argentina has been going downhill for eight decades, and it now has one of worst sovereign credit ratings in the entire world - on a par with Pakistan and lower than Bangladesh. Argentina, despite its natural resources and human capital, has managed to throw it all away. Argentina did not become relatively poor because of having been involved in destructive conflicts. It became poor because it has had a series of both democratically elected leaders and non-elected dictators who never missed an opportunity to make the wrong economic decisions.

Think of it as Obamacare for banks. Like Obamacare, the massive financial "reform" bill introduced by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CT, addresses a serious problem... but would, at great expense, make a bad situation much worse. Most of us are painfully aware the subprime mortgage crisis nearly destroyed our economy. At the heart of the crisis was fraud.  Money was lent to poor credit risks who couldn't pay it back.  For instance, a strawberry picker in Bakersfield, California, with an income of $14,000 a year was lent $724,000. How could firms such as Countrywide Mortgage and Long Beach Savings which were making such loans expect to make money on them?  By being protected by the most corrupt senator on Capitol Hill -- Chris Dodd.  And now Mr. Dodd wants a Bailout Bill that makes that protection permanent and endlessly taxpayer-funded.

What a difference an election can make! "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism," we were told by leading pundits and Democrat politicians from Jan. 20, 2001 to Jan. 19, 2009. And, according to these same worthies, there were few more noble ways to express dissent than protest demonstrations, which were frequent during the Bush administration.  For some, this was true even if the demonstrations turned violent. "Rioting is the voice of the unheard," Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, told the Los Angeles Times after the Rodney King riots in 1992.  Their attitudes have changed since Jan. 20, 2009.  Today, criticism of the president is "borderline sedition," said Time columnist Joe Klein.  It could lead to another Oklahoma City bombing, warned former President Bill Clinton.

Remember the Republicans' Contract With America they promised to implement should they win control of Congress in 1994?  A lot of it was penny-ante inside baseball, like promising to ban committee proxy votes.  At Tea Parties all over America yesterday (4/15), a new Contract was unveiled - a Contract From America - that tells folks in Congress what to do if they expect to be elected in November.  It is sunlight-to-moonlight better than that wimpy thing of Gingrich's 16 years ago. It demands politicians, to get the Patriotic American vote, pledge to scrap the entire IRS tax code and replace it with one no longer than 4,543 words - the length of the Constitution - scrap Cap & Trade, scrap all earmarks... and my favorite, defund Obamacare. Yes, the Defund Strategy, first propounded right here in TTP, then moved forward by TTPer Mitch Rapp with the Defund & Disobey website, has now been adopted by the entire Tea Party movement.  Congratulations, Mitch!  Congratulations to all TTPers who helped bring this about.