While it has been become expected nowadays for most pieces of legislation that are passed by any Democrat Congress to be the opposite of what either the title of the bill is or it’s purported aim, here we have a case of an absolute nuclear-type explosion in both how industry and businesses will operate as well as another giant step in building an all-encompassing bureaucracy.

From Real Clear Markets:

What one finds when reading congressional legislation is invariably surprising. Take the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, for instance, which was created by merging Senate and House bills. When the Senate returns from recess one of its first actions will be to vote on the bill, which passed the House on June 30.

I was searching the bill for a provision about derivatives. What did I find but Section 342, which declares that race and gender employment ratios, if not quotas, must be observed by private financial institutions that do business with the government. In a major power grab, the new law inserts race and gender quotas into America’s financial industry.

In addition to this bill’s well-publicized plans to establish over a dozen new financial regulatory offices, Section 342 sets up at least 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion. This has had no coverage by the news media and has large implications.

The Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks, the Board of Governors of the Fed, the National Credit Union Administration, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…all would get their own Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

So, it not enough that all Cabinet-level departments already have individual Offices of Civil Rights and Diversity or that the EEOC and the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance already are in place to oversee the enforcing of racial and gender discrimination laws etc. Now there is to be a “Office of Minority and Women Inclusion” office in just about level of the federal government, probably right down to the boiler room in the Cannon HOB janitor’s room.

While this sounds bad enough, it gets even worse when you see that it will also extend to and all who deal with any of these agencies, whether private or government.

Each office would have its own director and staff to develop policies promoting equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of not just the agency’s workforce, but also the workforces of its contractors and sub-contractors.

Not to mention, another by-product of this massive intrusion into the day-to-day dealings of private commerce is that it will supply the corrupt public-sector unions such as the SEIU, AFSCME and the NEA with many, many more workers who they then can use to extort more union dues from and then have them end up in Democrat campaign coffers. The same old racket, in other words.

Pelosi had it half right when she said a bill had to passed in order to see what was actually in it. Too bad it is always leftover dog crap that steams to the top of every one their so-called “bills” and “reforms”.

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Money may not grow on trees, but Congressional Democrat programs sure pop up faster then weeds in an abandoned HUD neighborhood.

From Zero Hedge: (Hat Tip: The Mark Levin Show)

In case one is wondering why the House Democrats attached a document to the emergency war supplemental bill that “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget, which basically allows the ruling party to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the constraint of an actual budget, here is the answer: on June 30, the US closed the books with just over $13.2 trillion in total debt, an increase of $210 billion in one month, or $2.5 trillion annualized. There is just $1.1 trillion left on the ceiling.

So, with just $1.1 trillion left in the ceiling, which of course will have to spent on “Porkulous II” or whatever they want to name newest SEIU Funding Extortion scheme They will then claim that more “emergency” spending will be needed for “critical” government functions and proceed to raise the debt ceiling once more.

As it stands, the debt-to-GDP ratio is already flirting with the 90% level, which is historically the Tipping Point for government default. Greece and Spain were just warm-ups for the real main attraction.

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Here is a handy little chart from the BLS showing in stark detail, how that whenever the Democrats take over the reigns of power, it is not only taxes, spending and debt that always go up, but unemployment as well. (And those attendant “stimulating” unemployment checks as well)

Hat Tips: Red State and Mark Levin:

By the way, the federal deficit has also increased about 1,400% since the Dems took over Congress a little more than three years ago.

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As has been going around all day, it has been reported that Sen. Robert Byrd has been hospitalized and is reported to be “seriously ill”.

Doug Powers reports via the West Virginia Secretary of State’s site that some dates are coming up very shortly when it comes to the governor appointing Byrd’s possible successor.

If the vacancy occurs less than two years and six months before the end of the term, the Governor appoints someone to fill the unexpired term and there is no election. If the vacancy occurs two years and six months or more before the end of the term, the Governor appoints someone to serve until the unexpired term is filled at the conclusion of the next candidate filing period, Primary Election, General Election and certification. The winner of that General Election fills the balance of the unexpired term. The election for the full term will be held as scheduled regardless of the date of the vacancy.

Over at Salon.com, Steve Kornacki explains these the dates:

As others have noted, the key date here is July 3 — next Saturday. Under West Virginia law, were a vacancy to be declared before then, an appointee would hold the seat through this November, when a special election would be held to fill the final two years on the term Byrd was elected to in 2006. The winner of that special election would presumably seek a full term in 2012. Were a vacancy to be declared after July 3, an appointee would hold the seat through the 2012 election, when the full six-year term would be up.

Also, as Powers mentions, the Saturday date seems like a non-starter:

A glance at Byrd’s laundry list of missed votes since late March is evidence that his Senate seat has in fact been mostly vacant for some time, so the odds that the seat would be declared “vacant” by next Saturday no matter what happens are very slim indeed.

This also brings up something that Mark Levin has mentioned several times over the last several months. That of how the Democrat’s majority in the Senate is very tainted. As it stands, out of the 59 current Democrat senators (including Byrd), five of them were appointed by their state’s governors, one is completely illegitimate due to naked vote fraud (Franken) and now we face the prospect of a sixth one being appointed. In reality, the Dems would then have only 52 sitting senators who were duly elected. (again I am not counting Franken as duly elected)

This type of gerrymandering has made it a LOT easier both for Obama and Reid to get their leftist agenda passed and made it much, much harder for the GOP to mount filibusters. Especially when there are turncoats like McCain, Snowes, Collins and Graham who have to be politically babysat whenever there is an important vote.

Granted, that will change in spades come November, but so much damage has already been done to this country at all levels with a tainted President and a tainted senate that it is enough to make a one a lifetime subscriber to Tums.com.

UPDATE:

Byrd has passed.

From the New York Times:

Robert C. Byrd, who used his record tenure as a United States senator to fight for the primacy of the legislative branch of government and to build a modern West Virginia with vast amounts of federal money, died early Monday. He was 92.

His office said he died about 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va. Senator Byrd, who lived in McLean, Va., had been admitted to the hospital late last week with symptoms of heat exhaustion and severe dehydration as temperatures in the Washington area approached 100 degrees. Though he was initially expected to be released after a few days, his condition deteriorated. He had been in failing health for several years.

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Just like his fellow comrade-in-arms, John “It takes a long a time…to put legislation together to control the people” Dingell, Rep. Paul Kanjorksi (D-PA) has uttered a nice juicy Joe-Biden-Foot-in-Mouth quote.

Hat Tip: Creative Minority:

The quote:

We’re giving relief to people that I deal with in my office every day now unfortunately. But because of the longevity of this recession, these are people — and they’re not minorities and they’re not defective and they’re not all the things you’d like to insinuate that these programs are about — these are average, good American people,” Kanjorski states.

So does that mean that according to the Congressman that someone like Obama is defective? The stupidity and arrogance of the small Democrat mind knows no bounds.

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This is certainly a low point in the history of Congress. Stalin, Lenin and Mao would be proud.

From Bloomberg:

June 24 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House, responding to a U.S. Supreme Court decision removing limits on corporate-and union-funded campaign spending, approved legislation requiring groups that air political ads to disclose who paid for them.

The legislation, passed 219-206, was spurred by the court’s decision in January that overturned a decades-old ban on companies using general-treasury money to run campaign ads supporting or opposing a candidate. The ruling, in effect, lifted such limits on union spending.

Two Republicans, Michael Castle of Delaware and Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana, joined 217 Democrats in backing the bill. Voting no were 170 Republicans and 36 Democrats. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration, where its prospects are unclear.

Lawmakers supporting the bill said advocacy groups that receive corporate or union money to run ads should disclose the funding sources.

“This legislation restores transparency and accountability to federal campaigns and ensures that Americans know when Wall Street, big oil and health insurers are the ones behind political advertisements,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

Republican Criticism

Republicans portrayed the measure as an assault on the First Amendment. They said the measure favored some groups, like unions, over others, rendering it unconstitutional.

“We’re so cavalierly dealing with the First Amendment,” said Representative Daniel Lungren, a California Republican. “We’re so cavalierly dealing with free speech.”

The bill would affect all political advertising, including so-called issue ads designed to elect particular candidates without directly asking voters to support or oppose them.

It would require corporations and unions to disclose all political spending, including contributions to outside groups that now would also be required to disclose their donors.

Corporate chief executive officers would have to appear in ads run by the company and say they approve of the message, as candidates are required to do.

In short, free speech would be licensed and parceled out according to the whims whoever is sitting in the offices of the FCC. And if you are not a member of a favored group that has been given special consideration for exemption (i.e. Unions) then you are out of luck. Especially if you are small business or a conservative grassroots organization, such as your local Tea Party.

Nope, just like East Germany 1957 or North Korea 2010, speech is to be codified and given out like a bowl of soup in a Dickens novel.

And you can thank one, Mike Castle, for helping to prove the margin of victory for the Leninists. Truly a menace and one who needs to be and very well could be removed from office in the GOP September 14 primary. (More on that coming up)

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Wherever Leftists go, they cause destruction, bankruptcy, poverty and a breakdown of what Mark Levin has reintroduced into the modern lexicon, the “civil society”. And there is no more evident example of this than the housing market.

The same people who for decades decried the lack of “affordable housing” (another Marxist Cloak Phrase, in the same vein as “living wage”) have, over the last 30+ years, caused a total breakdown in what was one of the more stable parts of the American economy over the last 100 years. That being the real estate market.

With foreclosures at a record rate, the number of mortgages underwater rising from about 5% around the time TARP I was passed to around 25% today and with the commercial real estate market also teetering, we could be in for not only a double-dip Depression, but a new housing crisis that could dwarf what started two years ago.

The major byproduct of this whole situation was of course, the passing of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that was signed by President Carter. For a complete recap of how that act, along with ACORN and their chief attorney, Barack Obama helped to contribute to the current situation, read my post from last year, “ACORN: How A ‘Community Organization’ Helped Destroy the Mortgage Industry”.

Now comes word that the Barney Frank/Chris Dodd/Maxine Waters-led Crony Stalinist Slush Fund known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost the U.S. taxpayer at least $389 billion, if not a lot more.

From Newsmax:

For all the focus on the historic federal rescue of the banking industry, it is the government’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that reportedly is likely to cost taxpayers the most money.

So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion and rising, the New York Times reports.

The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that the final bill could reach $389 billion.

Some analysts even estimate the total may reach $1 trillion, which Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings, recently told Bloomberg is “a reasonable worst-case scenario.”

Egan told Bloomberg that the final tally could hit $1 trillion assuming a 20 percent loss on the companies’ more than $5 trillion in loans and guarantees, similar to what other big mortgage companies, like Countrywide Financial, suffered.

The two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) now own more houses than there are in Seattle and are foreclosing on homeowners whose mortgages they guaranteed, the Times said.

Fannie and Freddie maintain the houses for a while, then resell them at a huge loss.

Just another example of the Left’s Utopian Dream going up in flames, while pushing this country closer to total and complete insolvency. I cannot wait to see how expensive “free” health care will be.

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