Yesterday the Oshkosh Northwestern revealed, via an open records request that reviewed hundreds of Ron Johnson emails, that Ron Johnson was not only the leading force behind getting racist Charles Murray to speak at Oshkosh:  when their was resistance, he paid for Murray's speaker's fee.

The Hill newspaper trumpeted in an article this morning that filibuster reform lacks the votes to pass in the next Senate.  Filibuster reform, in this case, is about eliminating the filibuster and going to majority rule.  The article mentioned five Democrats who are against, four who are wary, and another one who is against lowering the filibuster number but is for changing rules on the motion to debate:  

I recently read McJoan's post about a Republican candidate in Wisconsin advocating oil drilling in Lake Michigan, and couldn't help but wonder what that candidate is thinking....

As Steve Benen says, Wisconsin's Ron Johnson is apparently trying to give Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and Ken Buck a run for their money on the extremist crazy train. Drilling for oil in the Great Lakes?

Actually, yes, and the closer one looks at this, the uglier the story gets.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson found himself under the political microscope late last week after it was revealed that he owns up to $315,000 in BP stock while he has defended the oil giant against its critics and called for continued offshore drilling. [...]

Johnson, whom national Democrats like to refer to as the "forgotten Tea Party candidate," has expressed disappointment with the administration's "assault" on BP. At the same time, he's been a vocal advocate for continued and even accelerated oil and gas exploration, going so far as to express an openness to drilling in the Great Lakes.

According to Johnson's financial disclosure reports, the far-right candidate owns as much as $466,000 in oil company stocks, including as much as $315,000 in BP alone.

Russ Feingold has come out with a hard-hitting ad:

"I said no to drilling in our Great Lakes," says Feingold. "But one opponent, Ron Johnson, disagrees. He's willing to hand over the Great Lakes to the oil companies -- threatening Wisconsin's economy, and a way of life for generations of Wisconsin families. We won't let that happen." The ad shows a graphic of the oil spill along the Gulf Coast, with the blotted area then being superimposed over Lake Michigan and spreading all the way across Wisconsin.

Feingold's in a tight race, with  TPM's PollTracker showing him with a very slight edge, 45.7 to 44. Putting Johnson firmly in the Tea Party camp is going to be critical to Feingold's holding on.

Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.

You know, as much as Progressives are always forced to speak out against their own party one thing should be certain. When we get a proven, Progressive voice that is not afraid of making the tough votes and fighting for real progress in this country we simply must fight for them. Russ Feingold, no matter what state you are from is a Senator for Progressives everywhere. His record speaks for itself and it is hard to forget when only one Senator voted against the Patriot Act that Senator was Russ Feingold. He has the courage and conviction to stand alone for the right thing, which is a rarity in Washington.

Recently I wrote a diary about Senator Feingold's intention to vote against the financial reform package. For a bit, it seemed as though it may not have the votes at all without him. A quick reconference later, the bill seems on the track to passage, with Susan Collins (and almost certainly Olympia Snowe as well) and Maria Cantwell, Senator Feingold's former co-holdout, declaring for the bill. Senator Scott Brown is the last missing piece. Aside from the amusing process of panic-negotiation, this whole experience has taught us something else. What I call the "Liberal Bluff" strategy, the idea that liberals should wield their cloture votes to pull bills to the left (as the centrists have), has miserably failed.

Maria Cantwell has ended her silence about the financial reform bill that came out of conference. She voted against the Senate's package, but will now tells the WSJ that she will support the bill.

WASHINGTON—Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) said in an interview Thursday she would vote for the financial-overhaul bill when lawmakers return from the July 4th recess, bringing the White House to the verge of the 60 Senate votes it needs to ensure passage.

Ms. Cantwell said she was convinced the bill would toughen regulation of the derivatives market. Specifically, she had insisted the bill contain penalties for companies who didn't certain swaps through a "clearing" process meant to increase transparency in the market.

"While we can't do everything, what we can do is make sure we have a law on the books to take the $600 trillion derivatives market and shine a very bright light on it," she said in an interview.

That leaves: Scott Brown, still being a jerk about it since he forced the reconference on behalf of the big banks; Susan Collins, kind of leaning yes; Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe (yes votes last time) mum--Snowe probably a yes; Feingold still a no, and Senator Byrd's replacement probably seated in time to vote yes. The White House and leadership will have to find some combination of a few of those Senators to pass it, and they can't go back to the well and make any more changes to it--the House has passed it and the Senate has to pass the same bill.

(From TWD)

While bill weakening isn't leading to the likes of Cosmo Truck Guy Brown to still give it the full support, Russ Feingold has had enough with the Financial Reform Bill dissipating in power.  

Tonight, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Pentagon's request for $33 billion for open-ended war and occupation in Afghanistan. While press reports suggest that when the dust settles, the Pentagon will have the war money, it's likely that a record number of Representatives will go on the record in opposition to open-ended war and occupation.

Representative Jim McGovern [D-MA] and Representative David Obey [D-WI] are expected to introduce an amendment on the war supplemental that would require President Obama to present Congress with a timetable for military redeployment from Afghanistan.

Financial reform is back on, as David W. informed you earlier. They're in as of 5:00 today, EDT, but apparently not televised this time around.

So what's it going to take to get Brown, Collins, Grassley--or, conversely, Feingold and Cantwell? As of now, it appears that the negotiating is for the Republican votes. Ezra quoting CNBC:

The conferees will propose ending the Treasury Department’s authority to require banks to accept additional TARP funds. While this authority would sunset over time rather than end immediately, budget rules say that this would result in a savings of something like $10 billion to $11 billion.

Additional FDIC premiums also are being considered to bring in $3.5 billion, bringing the total closer to the $19 billion the lawmakers sought to raise with the bank tax. Republicans are expected to accept this deal. The biggest banks would be subject to the higher FDIC fees, but not hedge funds, since they are not part of the FDIC system. On the other hand, smaller banks — exempted from the fee under the current bill — that operate under the FDIC system would likely find themselves footing the bill.

So rather than a bank tax, which Scott Brown worried would take capital out of the banking system, we're going to drop part of the TARP program that was ... putting capital into the banking system. And rather than making big banks and big hedge funds foot the bill, FDIC fees will be hiked so that small banks have to pay in but hedge funds don't.

In other words, since it's TARP money, it's on the taxpayers. And small banks. Huzzah.

Still no definitive word on whether Cantwell is on board now with the bill, or whether she and Feingold were looped into the negotiations around this reopened conference. Chances are pretty good that they weren't. Their issues were focused on ending too big to fail, the Volcker Rule, and the derivatives reform.

It seems unlikely that Dodd would open up any of these other complex and settled titles for more tinkering. For one thing, as Beutler points out in the TPM story linked above, they don't have much time this week. Thursday and Friday are likely not going to be Senate business days, Durbin has said: "It becomes difficult because at least from I think it's 10-4 on Thursday, Senator Byrd will lie in state [in the Capitol], and then on Friday there's a funeral in West Virginia."

Crossposted from The People's View.

If the Republican party were a teenager named Chris Crocker, and if big banks were Britney Spears, the Republican response to financial reform would be very close to this video.  You see, with the death of Sen. Robert Byrd (may he rest in peace), Democrats in the Senate are now one vote shy of the 60 needed to put the conference financial reform bill through.  Well, not just because of Sen. Byrd's death, but also because Republicans who supported the Senate version are now balking.  What are they balking at?  Ah, yes.  The $19 billion fee on banks that was inserted in conference to pay for financial reform.

The CBO estimated that the financial reform bill will cost $22 billion over 10 years.  So how does the conference bill pay for it?

Josh Marshall sums up the latest pronouncement from Susan Collins with a simple word: Lucy. Like Scott Brown, Collins had provisions in the bill, having gotten amendments in during the Senate floor process, and like Brown is now playing hard to get.

But she's worried about the politics back home since the teabaggers hijacked the Maine Republican Party, and now she is fretting that she might just not be able to vote to pass this bill. And for the "fiscally disciplined" Senator who just couldn't bring herself to vote for jobless benefits or state aid last week, her reason is typically hypocritical: fees on banks and hedge funds that were added in conference in order to bring the CBO score for the bill in line.

"It was not part of either the House or Senate bill and was added in the wee hours of the morning. So I'm taking a look at the specifics of that and other provisions as well," Collins told reporters this evening outside the Senate chamber.

If both she and Brown oppose financial reform over bank fees, it could stall or even kill the legislation.

With Feingold a definite no vote, Reid is going to have to get Snowe, Grassley, and Cantwell on board, should Collins come down definitively as opposed. It's a situation that the administration unwittingly had a part in creating, presumably on the assumption that they could count on Collins and Brown, when it sided with Brown over the Volcker Rule loopholes he was pressing.

"Treasury's official position went from opposed to [the loophole] to supportive," one aide says. "They may have [even] overshot Brown's desires by a bit."

The variant of the Volcker rule in the Wall Street reform bill, authored by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), is meant to limit the extent to which federally insured financial firms can make risky bets with their profits.

In siding with Brown, the administration tacitly accepted that Sens. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who opposed the bill from the left, would continue to oppose it after the conference committee.

Cantwell has remained mum thus far on her intentions, as have Snowe and Grassley.

Today Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced his intention to vote against the financial market reform bill coming out of the conference committee. While his vote would show consistency, as he voted both to filibuster the Senate bill and then to vote it down outright, to be perfectly honest it has little else going for it. Russ Feingold may well do what hundreds of congressional Republicans have failed to do; kill the reform bill. If his decision has that result, it will be a historical betrayal of the first order and a classic example of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Progressive groups and those arguing for stronger Wall Street reform have targeted Russ Feingold as a key for pulling the bill in a stronger direction, and to offset the bargaining power of Scott Brown. Feingold joined Maria Cantwell as a vote against the package as it came out of the Senate, both voting no because the bill wasn't strong enough. By being vocal about his strong demands for a better final bill, Feingold could provide an effective counter-weight to the forces trying to weaken the bill.

And it appears that he's ready to take that role. TPM's Brian Beutler reports:

"During debate on the financial regulatory reform bill, I made it clear that I would only support a strong bill that can prevent another financial crisis," Feingold's statement reads. "Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill pass that test."

I have spoken to Senate leaders, the Obama administration, and members of the conference committee and made my concerns well known. I opposed deregulating Wall Street and eliminating the protections of the Glass-Steagall Act, a position which put me at odds with many in Washington who supported the very policies that contributed to the financial crisis, and who now support these bills that simply don't get the job done. Without including stronger reforms, we're simply whistling past the graveyard.

Tomorrow, congressional negotiators will determine whether to include the Merkley-Levin amendment in the final legislation, and whether that amendment should be tweaked to allow federally insured banks to invest in hedge funds. Without Feingold's support, the deciding vote on the final bill belongs to Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who's been pushing to allow that very objection. To flip the dynamic, progressives and reformers have been pressuring Feingold to consider changing his vote, and in his statement, Feingold seems to suggest he's game.

As Beutler says, that isn't a definitive no, and to make that point, Feingold included a list of provisions he'd like to see:

* Cantwell-McCain-Feingold amendment to restore the Glass-Steagall firewall between Wall Street and Main Street
* Senator Dorgan's "too big to fail" amendment, which requires that no financial entity be permitted to become so large that its failure threatens the financial stability of the U.S.
* Brown-Kaufman amendment proposing strict limits on the size of financial institutions
* Dorgan amendment to ban so-called naked credit default swaps, speculative bets that played a role in the economic crisis
* Merkley-Levin amendment to prohibit any bank with government insured deposits from engaging in high-risk finance, like investing in hedge funds or private equity funds

What's critical for Feingold is finding a ay to break apart the big banks, or at the least, get them out of the casino. If the Scott Brown and big bank effort to create a Swiss-cheese Volcker Rule, Feingold will most likely remain a "no." It'd sure make for a stronger bill to get Feingold on board than to worry about Brown. There are other amendments key to both Snowe and Collins in the bill that will make their votes gettable, so caving to Scott Brown shouldn't be necessary.

Last week, House and Senate conferees dealt with some relatively minor provisions to the reform bill, saving most of the heavy lifting for this week. One notable exception was agreement by the Senate to strengthen the Fed audit by broadening the Senate provision to include "transactions involving the Fed’s discount window and open market operations."

The tough stuff on the docket for this week, which for conferees starts tomorrow:

- "Interchange fees": The conference is slated Tuesday to consider whether the Federal Reserve should have the authority to set "reasonable and proportional" fees paid by merchants and retailers to banks and credit unions that issue debit cards. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the main backer of the provision, is pushing hard to keep it in the final legislation. The House bill did not include the provision. Small banks and credit unions are lobbying aggressively against it, while merchants and retailers are pushing for it to remain.

- Derivatives "push out": Big banks are lobbying hardest on a provision in the Senate bill that would require banks to push out their derivatives trading desks. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), the main champion of the provision, sits on the conference committee and is loudly calling on lawmakers to retain it. Federal regulators and banks argue it would shift the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market to less regulated firms.....

- "Volcker rule": Banks are also lobbying against a provision that would ban proprietary trading at banks and limit their ability to sponsor or co-invest with hedge funds and other alternative funds. Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) want to strengthen the rule by making it more explicit in the legislation. They expressed confidence Thursday that lawmakers were generally headed in their direction.

- Auto dealer exemption: Auto dealers have lobbied for more than a year for an exemption from a new consumer financial protection regulator. They won their case in the House in December, but the Senate bill did not include the exemption. A group of 62 House Democrats called on conferees to include the exemption. The carve-out is opposed strongly by the White House, Defense Department and Treasury Department.

There was out-of-conference agreement today on the first issue--so-called swap fees.

The deal, struck between Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and key House negotiators, leaves out some elements that consumer advocates had been fighting for. It allows fees charged to reloadable, prepaid debit cards -- generally used by the poor -- to remain unregulated. And it allows an exemption for states that use debit cards to dole out benefits. But, for the first time, banks and credit card companies will face restrictions on the fees they can charge merchants for the privilege of accepting credit and debit cards.

Which means retailers beat Wall Street, and that should benefit consumers in the long run, since the higher costs for merchants in swipe fees are passed on to the consumer in the former of higher prices.

On the derivatives issue, reformers are trying to push back the effort by the New York delegation, led by Gary Ackerman, and the so-called New Dems to significantly weaken the derivatives language at the behest of the bankers. When it comes to Wall Street vs. Main Street, these "moderates" have picked the side of the big, bad guys.

On the Volcker Rule, Scott Brown is attempting to be King, aided again by the big banks.

To secure the support needed for their bill, Senate negotiators are leaning toward creating a series of exemptions to the Volcker Rule that would allow banks to continue to operate these businesses as investment funds that hold only client money, according to several Congressional aides, industry officials and lawyers.

The three main changes under consideration would be a carve-out to exclude asset management and insurance companies outright, an exemption that would allow banks to continue to invest in hedge funds and private equity firms, and a long delay that would give banks up to seven years to enact the changes.

In particular, the provisions, sought by Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, and several other lawmakers, would benefit Boston-based money management giants like Fidelity Investments and State Street Corporation.

Tim Fernholz smartly argues that Senate negotiators should be looking elsewhere for the key sing Senate votes on the final bill.

Irksome as it is, the real question is why all the focus on Scott Brown? Assuming that the Senate voting coalition on the financial reform conference report will be similar to that of the original Senate bill, two Democratic Senators -- Russ Feingold and Maria Cantwell -- could be courted to support the bill in return for strengthening it. Perhaps there is some concern that the two Maine Senators who voted for cloture, Oympia Snowe and Susan Collins, will bolt without a third Republican, but that's all the more reason to keep Collins' amendment to increase capital requirements for banks.

Now would be a good time for both Feingold and Cantwell to hang tough on withholding their votes in return for stronger reform.

Progressive groups are working to get Russ Feingold engaged in the Wall Street reform conference negotiations, in hopes that he can counter the influence of Scott Brown. Feingold voted against the Senate package, arguing that the bill wasn't tough enough on Wall Street. TPM's Brian Beutler reports on the efforts of two organizations trying to get Feingold to use his opposition to give reformers in the conference committee leverage.

Americans for Financial Reform and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee are separately pushing Feingold to reconsider his vote provided two key provisions, strengthening the bill survives. PCCC members are petitioning Feingold to say that he'll vote yes, if and only if tough derivatives regulations remain in the legislation, and negotiators add a strong version of the so-called Volcker rule to the bill.

"Some senator will be the deciding vote on this bill -- will it be a Republican who wants less Wall Street accountability or a progressive like Feingold who wants more?" says PCCC co-founder Aaron Swartz. "By saying he would vote yes on the final bill if strong versions of the Lincoln and Volcker Rules are adopted, Feingold could change the dynamics of the negotiations, change history, and score a real victory for Main Street over Wall Street."

Why is Feingold such a pivotal player? As I reported yesterday, reformers and Hill staff are currently contending with the fact that Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is the man with the most power over the bill right now. He cast the 60th vote for reform, giving him tremendous leverage which he's been using to push for carve outs in the Volcker rule. (The Volcker rule, named after former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, would put serious restrictions on banks' ability to speculate with their profits.)

There are other moving parts to this negotiation. The New Dems, apparently trying to out Blue Dog the Blue Dogs, have have been circulating a draft letter "proposing to significantly scale back regulations on derivative trading, and open up exceptions to the so-called Volcker rule."

A core group of the New York delegation in the House is also fighting hard against both derivatives reform and a tough Volcker Rule.

The New York delegation may be the most immediate problem. "Those of us in New York represent not only Main Street, but Wall Street, as well, and understand very much that Main Street is affected by Wall Street," Ackerman told HuffPost. "I've spoken to the mayor, and I've taken it on myself to try to rally the troops."

The fact remains, however, that getting to 60 in the Senate is tougher than getting to 217. Feingold is key, and could provide a very strong bargaining chip for Dodd in the conference negotiations on these key provisions, which will be decided next week. But in order for him to provide this help, he has to engage.

On Monday, April 26, I wrote a diary about the fact that as a 99er, my unemployment had completely been exhausted.

After the news yesterday that 12 Democrats had voted against cloture on the unemployment/jobs/medicare/state aid package which is trying to make its way through Congress, I thought of a new strategy for finding work, which I implemented today.

Follow me to Washington, DC.

Today eighteen Senators voted for Senator Feingold's amendment to the war supplemental requiring the President to establish a timetable for the redeployment of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan. This could be a turning point in U.S. policy on the war in Afghanistan.

With this vote, the number of Senators on the record in support of the policy of establishing a timetable for military withdrawal just increased from two to eighteen: on Tuesday, Senator Boxer added her name to S.3197, Senator Feingold's bill that would have the same effect.

The other sixteen Senators who voted yes were Baucus [D-MT]; Brown [D-OH]; Cantwell [D-WA]; Dorgan [D-ND]; Durbin [D-IL]; Gillibrand [D-NY]; Harkin [D-IA]; Leahy [D-VT]; Merkley [D-OR]; Murray [D-WA]; Sanders [I-VT]; Schumer [D-NY]; Specter [D-PA]; Tester [D-MT]; Udall [D-NM]; and Wyden [D-OR]. (Noteworthy votes against included Senator Franken and Senator Feinstein. Last September, Feinstein called for a specific date for the withdrawal of American forces.)