political prisoners

The Brown-Kaufman amendment would have placed a legal limit on the total amount of assets a bank could hold. Its purpose would have been limit the size of banks, and by eliminating banks that are "too big to fail," put an end to the banksters being able to hold the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. economy hostage.

The amendment was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 61-33, and among the 61 Senators voting against it 27 were Democrats. This vote tells you who's buttering the bread of those particular Democrats, and it also shows that our government's inability to deal with the country's most serious problems is not a matter of donkeys vs. elephants.

It seems to me that the Democratic Party is going to have to split at some point. It would be better from a progressive point of view to belong to a minority party we could believe in rather than a majority party we can't live with.

Anyway, being part of a distinct minority isn't the end of the world. Look what's happening in England right now, with the Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg. Although they're very much in the minority, the Lib Dems are now going to be able to pressure Parliament into agreeing to substantial electoral reforms, and Clegg is on the verge of being named deputy prime minister.

Here's the Democrats' wall of shame: the 27 who voted against Brown-Kaufman. I've noted with pleasure that neither of the Senators from my own state of Washington, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, has her name on this list.

Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennet (D-CO)
Carper (D-DE)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Hagan (D-NC)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reed (D-RI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-CO)
Warner (D-VA)