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Senate Passes The Cromnibus: Here Is Who Voted "No" And What It Actually Contains
Following the passage of the Crominbus on Thursday night in a last minute "nailbiter" when the Federal spending bill got just one vote more than the required majority, it was off to the Senate. And late last night, proving that the Senate can work on weekends when a piece of Citigroup-penned legislation is on the table, in a 56-40 vote (21 democrats, 18 republicans, 1 independent voting No), the Senate joined the House in voting itself $1.1 trillion for the next 9 months, with the bill now heading for the final signature: Obama's. There is some argument whether the executive will join the legislative in confirming the US government is now (and always has been) merely a pupet of Wall Street, although we expect all it will take Jamie Dimon is just one more phone call of "encouragement" to Obama to make sure Wall Street's will is done in the White House.
Regardless, here is a roll coll of those 40 Senators who voted "No" - as CBS' Mark Knoller points out: "interesting combination of Dems and GOPs voting against the bill. Franken, Warren, McCain, Cruz, Klobuchar et al." As we showed yesterday when it became clear that Republicans and especially Democrats voting for the Crominibus and its swaps pushout provision had received far greater bribes money from Wall Street than their "No" voting peers, one can predict with laser-like accuracy that the same story will hold in the Senate, and that Senators voting for the Cromnibus will have received substantially greater "lobby" funds from Wall Street than "Nay"-sayers.
Senators voting No on final passage: 40
21 Democrats and 1 Independent voted against the Omnibus.
18 Republicans voted against the Omnibus.
Voting No: (40)
BLUMENTHAL, D-CT
BOOKER, D-NJ
BOXER, D-CA
BROWN, D-OH
CANTWELL, D-WA
CORKER, R-TN
CRAPO, R-ID
CRUZ, R-TX
FLAKE, R-AZ
FRANKEN, D-MN
GILLIBRAND, D-NY
GRASSLEY, R-IA
HARKIN, D-IA
HELLER, R-NV
HIRONO, D-HI
RON JOHNSON, R-WI
KLOBUCHAR, D-MN
LEE, R-UT
LEVIN, D-MI
MANCHIN, D-WVA
MARKEY, D-MA
MCCAIN, R-AZ
MCCASKILL, D-MO
MENENDEZ, D-NJ
MERKLEY, D-OR
MORAN, R-KS
PAUL, R-KY
PORTMAN, R-OH
REED, D-RI
RISCH, R-ID
RUBIO, R-FL
SANDERS, I-VT
SCOTT, R-SC
SESSIONS, R-AL
SHELBY, R-AL
TESTER, D-MT
VITTER, R-LA
WARREN, D-MA
WHITEHOUSE, D-RI
WYDEN, D-OR
Not Voting: (4)
Chambliss, R-GA
Coburn, R-OK
Feinstein, D-CA
Inhofe, R-OK
* * *
So, in addition to the now infamous Derivatives provision, what else does the Spending Bill contain? Here courtesy of The Hill is a breakdown of its main spending components:
The bill includes language repealing part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law that will allow banks covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to directly engage in derivatives trading. This set off the biggest political storm for the legislation, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led a liberal insurrection against the White House, which decided not to fight Republicans over the measure.
Wall Street lobbied for the change, and the bill will be sent to Obama with the language in it.
Campaign finance
The bill also raises the limits on what people can give to political committees each year, greatly increasing the money wealthy people can donate. The provision would allow a wealthy donor to contribute a total of more than $1.55 million to a national party.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lambasted the change in a floor speech in which she broke with the White House over the bill.
DC marijuana
The bill prevents Washington, D.C., from implementing a new referendum that legalizes recreational use of marijuana.
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton complained that it was another example of Congress stepping on local rule, but she won few allies for her position in Congress.
Sage grouse
The bill would prevent the government for one year from listing the sage grouse as an endangered species in an effort to protect oil-drilling projects.
School lunches
The legislation relaxes school nutrition standards championed by first lady Michelle Obama.
One change would allow schools the flexibility to implement whole grain nutrition standards, while another prevents new standards to reduce sodium from taking effect until additional scientific studies are conducted.
The White House said it could live with the changes.
Pensions
The bill permits trustees of underfunded pension plans to adjust benefits, saving troubled plans without a federal bailout.
But the language crafted by House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.) and ranking member George Miller (D-Calif.) could lead to cuts in the pensions of people covered by the plans.
ISIS
In a victory for the White House, the bill contains $64 billion for the Pentagon to use for its overseas contingy operations, including the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
It allocates $5 billion from that fund for the administration to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — slightly less than what the White House had requested.
Ebola
The bill meets another administration demand by including $5.4 billion in emergency funding to fight Ebola. While that’s not as much as the $6.2 billion requested by the White House, the inclusion of the funds bolstered Obama’s support for the measure.
Body cameras
The bill doesn’t contain funding for body cameras for police, which Obama had requested after the outcry over police killings of two black men, and grand jury decisions not to indict the officers involved. The spending package does provide funding for other related community policing programs.
The bill also doesn’t include funding for high-speed rail, for the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” education program and for the International Monetary Fund.
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It is “the most consequential change to retirement policy in the United States since the passage of landmark pension legislation 40 years ago. Altering the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act to permit benefit cuts could prompt a slew of efforts to chip away at formerly untouchable guarantees of income to millions of retirees … the large, union-backed funds created in the explosion of labor unions after the Great Depression. The government-insured plans cover an estimated 10 million Americans from the private sector workforce. Many of those funds now face unfunded liabilities…” --International Business Times
"pension plan senanigans http://www.ibtimes.com/pension-fund-run-wall-street-cited-push-cut-retir..."
A few friends and one stranger retiree owe me some fiat.
I casually bet them that the banksters would manipulate the lucre flowing to pensioners at some point in the future.
Same group of friends just knew, knew, that the Repubs, and later the Tea Party, was going to "repeal" Obamacare.
LOL
An American, not US subject.
"Follow the money. Trace the Jews."
republicans ... democrats ... just different side of a same fucking coin.
Republican and Democrat parties – two wings of the same collectivist bird, as G. Edward Griffin points out – ruled by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Leaders of both parties agree on the three most important issues: foreign policy, dominance of the banking system, the U.S. role in the Middle East.
There’s no debate, no division (not even pretend) when it comes to these three issues.
FDIC insurance will bail out the banks when they lose everything once again.....
I always found insurance was only worth having if the premiums made sense.
Perhaps we should set the premiums for any bank dabbling in derivatives at 150% of the cover requested.
Guess it is once again time to call out the whores on their social media pages.
Anilingus?
It pisses me off, again, that the Democrats who I loathe, vote the right way in greater numbers on this stupid budget bill than the Republicans. More Demo's voted no that Repubs.
I see that every time curbing the NSA's powers come up to and I don't get it. I expect to see the Repubs helping curb government power and what I see is they vote against the curbs and keep the spying thing going. The Demo's vote against spying
I don't get it.
Neocons (Israel firsters = MIC and NSA)
Fuck you John Cornyn. May the fucking mexican drug cartels cook you for dinner!
I live in Mississippi, and I thought my Congressman was a conservative. Apparently I was wrong. I'm very upset about this. I believed he was different, but obviously, this is proof otherwise.
Nobody with your interests at heart could vote for your tax dollars to underwrite Wall Street's derivatives bets. If your congressman voted for this and you support him, YOU DESERVE IT. Decide, right now, where you stand. You just got screwed to the tune of 100 trillion dollars. Are you just going to take it?
duplicate
Where does that leave God? The same place as Bilbo Baggins, Puff the Magic Dragon and Gandalf... fictional characters who simply entertain us
at home or church.
The longer it goes on the less likely it is to be challenged. I think we're past the point of no return.