Byron Dorgan Retiring (With Initial Analysis) - FDL

[WillyT]

Byron Dorgan Retiring
By: David Dayen Tuesday January 5, 2010 3:11 pm

<snip>

This was unexpected. Byron Dorgan, the Democrat who served North Dakota in the US Senate for 30 years, will not seek re-election. Here’s the statement posted at his Senate site.

“Representing North Dakota in the U.S. Congress for nearly 30 years has been one of the great privileges of my life.

“The work I have been able to do to expand our economy, create new opportunities in energy and water development, invent the Red River Research Corridor with cutting-edge world class research, build a stronger safety net for family farmers and much more has been a labor of love for me <...>

“Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life. I have written two books and have an invitation from a publisher to write two more books. I would like to do some teaching and would also like to work on energy policy in the private sector.

“So, over this holiday season, I have come to the conclusion, with the support of my family, that I will not be seeking another term in the U.S. Senate in 2010. It is a hard decision to make after thirty years in the Congress, but I believe it is the right time for me to pursue these other interests.

This is a major blow to Democrats in the Senate. Aside from Dorgan being a pretty solid champion for the middle class, in the populist prairie tradition, he represents a state that is pretty solidly Republican (although Barack Obama actually did half-decent there in 2008). John Hoeven is one of the most popular Governors in the country, and if he jumped into this race – which is pretty likely – I think he would win in a walk.

That’s an almost certain flip to the Republicans in the Senate, one they probably won’t even have to spend very much to get, and it really frustrates any opportunity for Democrats to maintain their 60-seat advantage. This is basically the last year of governing for the Obama Administration for the discernible future, especially as Democrats will have far more seats to defend in the Senate in 2012 and 2014. And they’ve already hinted that there will be almost no governing this year.

<snip>

Link: http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/01/05/byron-dorgan-retiring/

Well... 2010 should have about the same suckage as 2009... whoopee!!!

:banghead:

[tridim]

1. Not attacking the messenger, but do you have a non-neocon source?

[Odin2005]

3. WTF? FDL is a progressive site.

:wtf:

[tridim]

4. FDL is aligned with Grover Norquist and the Teabaggers.

That isn't "progressive" by exactly 180 degrees.

[msongs]

6. obama shook w"s hand, does that make obama a right wing republican? nt

[tridim]

14. Obama is not a turncoat like Jane Hamsher.

Obama is a Democrat.

[aquart]

24. What hysterical gibberish.

I love reincarnated witch burners.

[tridim]

27. Not interested in burning witches.

Just pointing out that FDL is no longer a trustworthy source of news.

[laughingliberal]

45. "How do you know she is a witch?" "She looks like one."

Or, in this case, she associates with one. Dontcha love it?

[laughingliberal]

7. Yeah, and Sanders is a RW nut job cause he's co-sponsoring a bill with Ron Paul. Not! nt

[tridim]

15. Sanders is a socialist.

Hamsher is a teabagger.

Do you really not see the difference?

[laughingliberal]

19. I see someone who said they weren't attacking the messenger and then attacked the messenger.

I see someone who probably agreed with Norquist on the following statement but who would like to discredit Jane Hamsher cause she's called the President out on fellating of the corporate powers.

Grover Norquist, a principal organizer of the conservative movement who is close to the Bush White House and usually supports its policies, says, "If you interpret the Constitution's saying that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do anything he wants and can ignore the laws you don't have a constitution: you have a king." He adds, "They're not trying to change the law; they're saying that they're above the law and in the case of the NSA wiretaps they break it." A few members of Congress recognize the implications of what Bush is doing and are willing to speak openly about it. Dianne Feinstein, Democratic senator from California, talks of a "very broad effort" being made "to increase the power of the executive."



http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19092

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Norquist was right to call Bush out on the violations of the FISA laws and Jane Hamsher was right in her analysis of the intent of the administration to funnel billions of more dollars to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the end of the year in order to avoid the need for congressional approval.

[tridim]

20. I'm attacking the source.

Where did I attack the OP?

[laughingliberal]

23. I was referring to your attacking of the source

But, if it were not the source, I have faith you would find another reason to attack anything that hints at any problems with the actions/policies of the current administration.

[tridim]

28. "Source" and "messenger" are two different things.

Why do I have to explain this? :rofl:

[laughingliberal]

29. Semantics

We all know whether it was the source or the link you will find a way to attack anything that is less than complimentary of the administration.

[tridim]

30. This post is about Dorgan, not the administration.

What in the hell are you even talking about?

[laughingliberal]

33. I think a lot of us here believe the administration's hit on Dorgan's amendment was the last straw

for him. And I think your running out to attack any thread which contains information about Jane Hamsher is motivated by her calling the administration out on their funneling of billions to Fannie and Freddie before they would have needed congressional approval.

[Odin2005]

FDL is aligned with reality over Orwellian Fascism.

[joeybee12]

21. Stop posting from the White House....

...hey Rahm, if you spent half the time dragging down your enemies instead of those who should be your friends, SOMETHING might get done.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. Oh good grief

:rofl:

[WillyT]

5. This Was The First One To Pop Up After The Announcement

And I still find plenty of valuable info at FDL. Sorry...

:shrug:

[laughingliberal]

9. The analysis is absolutely spot on. Ignore the pom pom crowd. nt

[tridim]

22. Pom pom crowd? What am I cheering? Certainly not FDL.

This is shitty news, I just don't care to read what the teabaggers have to say about it.

That's why I asked for a better source.

[laughingliberal]

34. The STFU and support the president crowd. Don't worry. Giving up the super majority in the Senate

will make life much easier for the president and his CofS.

[slipslidingaway]

40. FDL - neocon source??? WTF indeed. n/t

[depakid]

49. LOL- you can't REALLY be THAT shallow, can you?

Just goes to show Republicans don't have a monopoly on Manichean "thinking"

[Odin2005]

2. Shit.

[WillyT]

8. And Just As A Reminder...

''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010. I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.'' - Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, 1999

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/15/17433/005

:shrug:

[laughingliberal]

10. That was one of the first thoughts I had when I heard the announcement

We're losing the one guy who had to guts to stand up and speak out when they handed the corporations the weapon to destroy us.

[WillyT]

12. Exactly... Well Stated !!!

:shrug:

:banghead:

[pscot]

11. Bad news on many levels

Not least because Dorgan has been a pretty good Senator.

[FBaggins]

13. Update from OP's link

UPDATE: Marcy Wheeler hints that this could be fallout from Dorgan’s loss on reimportation. I don’t really buy that. Dorgan’s fought a lot of lonely battles in his day, and he never gave up before. He was practically the only member of the Senate who didn’t want to repeal Glass-Steagall. If that kind of cynical legislating didn’t get him out, I doubt the PhRMA deal would have. Occam’s razor here is that Dorgan’s an old man and he wanted to enjoy his later years. I do think that, with the expectation of a less-than-60-vote Senate in the near future, which is the likely outcome after the midterms, he saw no real point to sticking around

[laughingliberal]

16. I posted on another thread before this one that I think it was the White House hit

on his amendment that did it. Not saying it is the only factor but I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Years of fighting an uphill battle to see progressive legislation passed with one after another corporate friendly administrations fighting him has, likely, taken its toll. And, yeah, why bother when it's obvious he's at a movie he's seen before?

[FBaggins]

17. I hope it was.

Because the alternative is that his support of HCR has cost him support among too many voters. A Kos poll a year ago had him leading Hoeven by 22%. A recent poll showed Hoeven reversing that margin and trouncing Dorgan if he elected to get into the race. Yes, it was a Rasmussen poll, but there it is. If that's why he was getting out, then other democrats are in trouble.

[laughingliberal]

32. I think we're vulneralble as hell in 2010 regardless of current polling

There was never going to be any support from the right and now the left is alienated. I believe we are witnessing one of the most concerted voter suppression initiatives against the left we have seen in my lifetime and, this time, I don't think it's coming from the right.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

36. I can only assume that the Democrats in power do not want to win in 2010.

Grid lock would be best, in re: to them. They do not (edit to add) want a super majority, they and their antics would look even stupidier.

I don't blame Dorgan, just wish him et his well.

[laughingliberal]

47. That's the conclusion I have come to. The hits on the left are too consistent now to deny it

I think the super majority was inconvenient as hell for the administration. Wonder how much they had to promise all those Blue Dog senators to get them to do their dirty work and kill that PO. Smaller majorities would allow them to enact their more right leaning policies saying they had to work with Republicans to get anything done. Is there anyone out there to whom this is not becoming suspect if not apparent?

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

50. Seems the pubs are dropping like flies also.

It it really is something to view. Doesn't seem real.
No one wants to be in charge in 2010.
Can't say I blame them.
Something wicked this way comes.

[laughingliberal]

51. Indeed. nt

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

18. There were 8 nays on Glass Steagall

Feingold
Boxer
Bryan
Dorgan
Harkin
Wellstone
Shelby!
Mikulski

And McCain did not vote.

I just wrote the WH for the second time today to reinstate something like Glass Steagall. No response from my first one a week ago.

[aquart]

26. 8 nays on the repeal?

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

31. They were the nays in re: to the Gramm Leach Bililey Act

This included the repeal of Glass Steagall Act of like 1933. This passed in Nov. 1999.

[laughingliberal]

35. Only 8 who were willing to stand up against the destruction of the working and middle class nt

[slipslidingaway]

37. Wow, I just responded in another thread before I saw this one...

which has over 500 views and zero recs on an important topic.

What gives?

:shrug:

I'm listening again to Dorgan's speech from 3/30/2009 about the financial mess.

Maybe the link will work.

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=8983097

snip>>>>

"...Is it a surprise? This is bad business. They all made big money. They were like hogs at a trough, with unbelievable greed. They made massive amounts of money. Yet they were able to sell the risk forward, and the people in the hedge funds made money, and the people in the investment banks made money. The amount of money they made is unbelievable. Bear Stearns went belly up. Alan Schwartz, the CEO of Bear Stearns the 5 years prior, made $117 million. Jimmy Cane, the previous CEO, 5 years prior,
made $128 million. At Lehman Brothers, Dick Fuld, 5 years prior to him going bankrupt, made $350 million. This was a carnival of greed. Everyone was doing well, except the economy, with this unbelievable avalanche of debt and leverage that all completely collapsed.

Now, we have a situation today where we have the American people trying to figure out what happened. I described the subprime loan scandal, which was at its roots. They were all making a lot of money by victimizing the American people. I should say some of the people were not victims. Some of these folks were willing victims because they wanted to buy a house with a special deal and flip it and make money. They got caught. They are not really victims. They were trying to profiteer. A lot of other
folks were victims of this sort of scam.

I mentioned that these big investment banks took on all these assets and then got bailed out, and we now think there is $9 trillion of American taxpayers' money at risk going out through the back door of the Federal Reserve Board, Treasury, and the FDIC--$9 trillion. There has never been a hearing about that. No one has been able to get the Federal Reserve Board before a hearing to tell us where those trillions of dollars are pledged, who got the money, and how much money did they get. You cannot
find out. The information we do have is pried out of the Federal Reserve Board. Bloomberg News corporation filed a lawsuit to get some of this information. That is unbelievable.

I mentioned these big financial firms that got all these bailouts. About $45 billion in TARP funds have gone to Bank of America. Bank of America got $30 billion in January of this year. Bank of America, last September, was urged to buy Merrill Lynch, a failed investment bank, by the then-Treasury Secretary Paulson. So what happened was the marriage was arranged by the Treasury Secretary and was going to be consummated in January. It turns out that in December, Merrill Lynch, which lost $27 billion
in 2008, paid $3.6 billion in bonuses to their employees.

Let me say that again. An investment bank called Merrill Lynch that lost $27 billion--$15 billion in the fourth quarter alone--paid $3.6 billion in bonuses in December just prior to being taken over by Bank of America. Then Bank of America received $20 billion in TARP funds from the American taxpayers--in addition to $10 billion it had just been paid, which was initially allocated to Merrill Lynch. Pretty unbelievable.

Here are the Merrill Lynch bonuses, $3.6 billion. The top four executives got $121 million. This is for a company that lost $27 billion last year and was a failing company. Madam President, 694 executives got more than $1 million each. These are bonuses that would normally have been paid in January. They were paid in December, and my suspicion is they were paid by arrangement with Bank of America to be paid before the end of the year and before $30 billion went from the American taxpayers to
Bank of America that just took over Merrill Lynch. That means, in my judgment, the American taxpayers paid bonuses to those who worked for a company that lost $27 billion in a year.

Do people have a right to be furious about this situation? You bet they do, and they should.

There are a lot of needs we have in this country to try to find a way to fix this situation so it never happens again. But as I have indicated, the first step, it seems to me, always is to try to understand what has happened and what to do about it.

The Washington Post had a story recently. In fact, I believe it was an editorial. They talked about the fact that hedge funds were not a part of the problem in this financial meltdown. I don't know about that. Let me show some examples of incomes at the hedge fund level. This is a man named James Simons. There is no implication here about being right or wrong, legal or illegal. My point is about the spectacular amount of income, what I call incomes from outer space. Mr. Simons made $2.5 billion
last year--$2.5 billion. It is interesting. He runs a hedge fund.

Here is a man named John Paulson, who also runs a hedge fund. He made $2 billion last year. It seems to me he is probably profoundly disappointed because the year before, John made $3.7 billion. And, oh, by the way, my best guess is that each of them probably pays a 15-percent income tax rate, something called carried interest. But that is another story for another day. They pay income tax rates, in most cases, that would be below the marginal tax rate paid by their receptionist in their office.
That is not their fault. That is the fault of the Tax Code and the fault of this Congress for not changing it.

John Paulson last year made $3.7 billion. He has a reason probably to come home and say: Honey, we need to tighten our belt here. Madam President, $3.7 billion--by the way, that is $10 million a day. In 2007, he made in 4 minutes what the average worker works for a year to make. Incomes from outer space, big old hedge funds--they play a role in this collapse. The Washington Post said they have played no role. Oh, really? Really? Where are they in the food chain of derivatives, credit default
swaps, CDOs? Does the Washington Post know? Of course, it doesn't. It doesn't have the foggiest idea what role hedge funds may have played in this situation.

What we do know is there is a lot of dark money out there traded off the exchanges. Nobody knows what risk you have. That is why you have had all these big-shot bankers walking around acting like they are in some sort of seizure because nobody knows how much risk has been taken on. Every time we turn around it is more. It is billions, hundreds of billions, then trillions of dollars.

As I said earlier, we need to create a select committee in the Senate and soon. It is this body's job. We are the ones who send the money out. We are the ones who have said we are going to provide $700 billion of TARP funds. It is our responsibility to track it and to understand what has caused its need..."

[WillyT]

39. I Had The Temerity To Link To FireDogLake...

So although this WAS about Byron Dorgan...

It's now about FDL and hurt feelings.

:shrug:

BTW - Thank you for your post and link! Bookmarking now!

:hi:

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

41. Thanks for the thread Willy. Rec.

Ignore the lemmings.

[WillyT]

42. Thanks Once... I Try !!!

:evilgrin:

:hi:

[slipslidingaway]

43. Well that is just BS if that is what is happening ...

I was away during the holidays and most likely missed many of the threads. I saw the first reply about a non-neocon source - dare not question the administration I suppose.

If that is what is happening then it reflects poorly on those who visit DU frequently anymore. I remember the first fight against FISA and the telecom immunity bill when Greenwald and Hamsher said they would join forces with others on the "other side" to fight against the bill. It was a good idea then and I believe a good idea now. If the PTB can keep people divided along Party lines then the majority of people will lose and the corporations will be enriched - never been a my Party right or wrong person.

You're welcome for the link - it was a very good speech - questioning the Fed and the large money players is not something many Senators will do.

[laughingliberal]

44. I thought your link was just fine and the analysis is going to be the same no matter who writes it

at this point. Unless, of course, it's someone trying to hide the fact that the administration's hits on liberals are starting to have an effect. Rec;d to offset the apparatchiks.

[WeDidIt]

46. If it says FDL, you just know it's bullshit

The Dems will have to move to the right in ND to retain this seat.

And retain it they will.

It's not a major blow to the Dems, it's a HUGE blow to liberalism.

And that's what sucks, even though the assholes at FDL refuse to admit it.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hidden Stillness]

53. This is a Huge Loss, Grim--The Great Byron Dorgan, Gone

I take this as a very ominous sign; this is very bad (and the fact that the Democratic-Party-haters jumped on this thread so quickly to poison it, shows the importance of this thing). I was shocked, anguished is not too strong a word, yesterday when I read the C-SPAN caption of Dorgan's announcement, and I thought immediately that all the back-stabbing and legislation-killing of the Obama/"D"LC Admin. has killed another true populist; God, this is awful. Dorgan was one of the greatest, and smartest.

I can't even count up the number of great speeches I have heard Dorgan give over the years on C-SPAN: trying to return the excess-profits tax for oil corporatations, and end subsidies; trying to get re-imported prescription drugs from Canada, to lower prices; explaining the endless corporate tax dodges and scams, about U.S. corporations that buy sewer systems in Germany, lease them back to German municipal Governments, then taking a "loss" on it, and the famous picture of the small building on the Cayman Islands, that is the fake claimed address of tens of thousands of tax-cheating U.S. corporations, etc., etc.--the great vote against the killing of Glass-Steagall, and the explanation why, and what horrors would happen if it were ended. A real populist, true anti-corporate--one of the greatest and bravest people in the whole Congress. Dorgan fought Republican Administrations, but must have had enough when the vicious fighting started to come from the anti-Dems; it now seems really hopeless.

This is a real loss, a true loss...and it is only the beginning.