Voting Merkally

Jeff Merkley ran for the US Senate as a populist. But lacking deep grassroots support, he ran on Chuck Schumer's dime, and today we witnessed the first payback.

In the course of the campaign, Merkley repeatedly assailed his opponent Sen. Gordon Smith for canceling out the votes of Oregon's "senior" Senator, Ron Wyden. But when it came to one of the most important votes in his new career as a DC politician, Sen. Merkley did not vote with his Democratic colleague. He didn't even vote his conscience.

When then candidate Merkley went on the record regarding the Reid-Pelosi-Bush $700 Billion bank bailout, he to the opportunity to slam Smith and while lauding Wyden.

"I commend Ron Wyden for standing up for taxpayers and doing what is necessary to restore accountability on Wall Street. The easy thing to do would have been to vote yes on this bill. I have dedicated much of my life to advocating for consumers and I believe it is just wrong to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money to bailout the very Wall Street financiers who created this crisis. This bill will allow those same executives to walk away with golden parachutes, while doing nothing to end the abuses of oversight that caused this mess or help working families who need their own economic rescue. This proposal is badly flawed and adding a number of important unrelated items, no matter how worthy, does not fix the problems with this bailout."

The first $350 Billion vanished into air thick with golden parachutes in the planning. And today when the new Democratic super Senate was called on to exercise some oversight with respect to the last half of the bailout money, they bailed. Jeff Merkley cast his vote with Schumer and against Wyden and and sold out the US Taxpayer when he endorsed this second $350 Billion blank check.

Update: And it didn't take the Treasury long before they began pissing it away. (Couldn't we at least wait for Obama's cronies to get their hands on the loot?)

Big loss at Bank of America as feds give it $20 billion more By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — With a new round of turmoil gripping the financial markets, the Bush administration late Thursday night rushed $20 billion in emergency funding for Bank of America. [More...]