Plastic Surgery.

“‘This is landmark legislation that is going to make the credit card marketplace more transparent and more fair for millions of consumers,’ said Travis B. Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America. ‘In particular, it’s going to prevent credit card companies from suddenly and unjustly increasing interest rates which is pushing many consumers with credit card debt into bankruptcy.’” The Senate passes legislation aimed at reining in the more blatant and arbitrary instances of credit card usury by a vote of 90-5, with a bill expected on President Obama’s desk by Memorial Day.

This sounds like a clear step in the right direction…but funny how times change, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that many of these same Senators passed the 2005 bankruptcy bill, which dug the financial hole deeper for millions of Americans in the name of an easy buck for the credit card industry. Better late than never, I suppose.

We are all “Socialists” now.

“Let’s be clear about why we’re facing a crisis that could pull down the global financial system. The irresponsibility of individuals who bought houses they couldn’t quite afford pales in comparison with the irresponsibility of the financial wizards who built on those shaky mortgages a towering edifice of irrational faith. Someone in the government should have looked at all those trillions of dollars’ worth of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps and demanded that Wall Street prove that all, or even most, of this purported money was real. But we’re in the eighth year of the Bush administration; adult supervision left the building long ago.” — Eugene Robinson.

Boy, nothing like panic and near-catastrophe in the banking and financial sectors to turn all the stark raving free-market fundies redder than Eugene Debs on May Day, eh? In any event, once again we’re on the verge of learning the hard way that Wall Street does a really lousy job of regulating itself, and that, when push comes to shove, it’s the “don’t-tread-on-me” entrepreneurial capitalists among us who are the first to beg for Big Guvmint to come in and bail them out — at above-market prices. “The only emergency is on Wall Street, and that is entirely of Wall Street’s making. It was the banks that made the loans, the banks that bought the paper, the banks that dumbly believed the models that said that housing prices wouldn’t collapse…How touching to see executives from the likes of Lehman Brothers, not normally an institution associated with widows and orphans, squawk about cutthroat tactics.” And I don’t seem to remember the economic Big Boys, or their mostly-GOP minions in Congress, show such concern about the vagaries of risk when the plight of ordinary folks was being discussed, vis a vis the egregious bankruptcy bill of 2005.

Of course, we can’t just let many of our major financial institutions implode without consequence, and — even though delegating the Dubya administration any more “emergency powers” at this point seems like a colossally bad idea — it seems a given that something will have to be done to sort out all this out, and it will no doubt end up costing taxpayers and aggrieved homeowners a bundle. I just hope, when the dust settles, we remember this time how this all came about, and not just let the idiotic free-market fundies blather on about tax-and-spend liberals killing the entrepreneurial spirit every time some sort of regulatory apparatus is discussed in Washington. We know how that movie ends.

Bare Stearns. | We are all NOLA?

“The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard…It’s just fine to make it harder for the average Joe to file for bankruptcy, as did that wretched bankruptcy bill passed by Congress in 2005 at the request of the credit card industry. But the big guys are ‘too big to fail’ because they could bring us all down with them.” After the Bear Stearns deal and all it would seem to portent about the condition of the Dubya economy, E.J. Dionne reads the riot act to free market fundies.

In related news, WP’s Dan Froomkin’s notes how Dubya’s handling of the economy is now being compared to the aftermath of Katrina. ‘As the storm clouds gathered, was President Bush once again asleep at the wheel? A consistent theme in today’s political and economic coverage is that Bush’s failure to recognize the severity of the ongoing financial crisis and act accordingly is reminiscent of his disastrously slow and inept response to Hurricane Katrina….’As with the war in Afghanistan, the Iraqi war aftermath, the Hurricane Katrina disaster and current efforts at Mideast peace, investors are concerned that the president is responding too late and with inadequate understanding, resources and creativity.'”

Going down swinging.

Four days out from Zero Hour and as per the kitchen sink strategy, the Clinton campaign attempts a few more sad gambits to stay alive in the race…

Fearmongering: It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing…” Sen. Clinton has a new terror, terror, terror ad out in Texas, suggesting an Obama presidency will result in all manner of horrible things disrupting the sleep of your dear children. (It echoes this old Mondale spot, by the same ad guru twenty-four years ago.) Sen. Obama responded here: “We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes…We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.” Update: If this seems like a McCain ad, that might be because it was one, a fan-made ad back in January. (Then again, LBJ did it too.) Update 2: The Obama campaign already has a response ad out.

Moving the Goalposts (again): Flying in the face of reality once again, the newest Clinton campaign spin gets silly: “With an eleven state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there’s a problem.” Uh, no. Quite the contrary. The math hasn’t changed since Wisconsin. Sen. Clinton must not only win Texas and Ohio, but win them both by twenty points. Anything less, and her campaign is mathematically kaput. (The reason for this goofiness from the campaign? Rhode Island looks to be an easy Clinton pick-up.)

Shady lawyering: “It has been brought to my attention that one or both of your campaigns may already be planning or intending to pursue litigation against the Texas Democratic Party…Such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated Democratic process.” Texas Dem sources say the Clinton campaign has — in keeping with their strategy in Nevada last month — threatened a lawsuit to disrupt the caucus process there. Camp Clinton has backed away from these threats since they leaked, but sources maintain Clinton is suggesting legal action to cast doubt on the Texas caucus results on Tuesday night, thereby possibly buying her campaign a media cycle or two before the inevitable happens.

Granted, I’m a partisan. But I really don’t see any of these working to Sen. Clinton’s advantage. In fact, they just make her and her campaign look that much more petty. (See also the newest playing of the gender card: “‘Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field,’ she said, ‘but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there.’” Aw, it’s hard out here for the wife of a popular, two-term ex-president!) Update: In the meantime, Sen. Obama has picked up four more supers.

Update 2: Let’s see…what else does the Clinton campaign have under the kitchen sink? How ’bout some misleading mailers? (Gasp! Tough mailers? Shame on you, Hillary Clinton!) In any case, one claims “Barack Obama voted against protecting American families from predatory credit card interest rates of more than 30 percent.” As Obama said in a previous debate, he opposed the bill because “thought 30 percent potentially was too high of a ceiling. So we had had no hearings on that bill. It had not gone through the Banking Committee.” (Lest we forget, Sen. Clinton actually voted for the lender-friendly bankruptcy bill in 2001.) The other basically suggests Obama is a corporate stooge on the payroll of the energy companies. Left unsaid: Sen. Clinton has taken more donations from the energy industry.

Back from the Brink.

Despite the best efforts of Tim Russert, who asked rinky-dink meta-questions about the past week for most of the first segment, the Democratic debate in Los Vegas was a pause for breath tonight, with Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton all going out of their way to dial back the heat and try to bridge the identity politics chasms that have yawned open of late. As such, with all three candidates on their best behavior and looking to avoid direct confrontations that might get nasty, it was the type of debate that made the party and all three contenders look good, but also probably didn’t change very many votes.

From where I sat — and this will surprise exactly no one — I thought Barack Obama came off the best of the three. He seemed gracious in his call to move past last week’s racial firestorm and deflected the — many — attempts by Russert to re-inject race into the debate. He offered the only funny moments of the evening (Brian Williams thinking he was in LA notwithstanding) and seemed convincing and natural. And, perhaps most importantly, he displayed a command of policy specifics and a capacity for nuance, which once again belies the argument that he’s just a oratorical Hope machine. He seemed, in a word, presidential. (Although I do wish, when asked when he’d first decided to run for president, he’d simply said “kindergarten.”)

John Edwards was as good and on-message as always, but it didn’t seem like he managed to do anything tonight that would be a game-changer. (Then again, in an atmosphere of such explicit convivality as tonight, Edwards’ central message — I will fight for you! — didn’t have much of a chance to gain traction anyway. That being said, he did manage to trump Clinton’s dubious “35 years of experience” claim by announcing that “for 54 years I’ve been fighting with every fiber of my being.” 54 years of fighting? Hey, let’s not forget those nine months in the womb, there.) Edwards also brought up one of the first campaign finance questions we’ve heard in awhile — one in which Obama announced he’d ultimately be for public financing, which made me happy — but due to the moderators not seeming to understand their own rules, it never got around to Senator Clinton, where it was likely — and should have been — directed.

Hillary Clinton came across better tonight than she did in New Hampshire, and, to her credit, she also did her part to uphold the truce (at least in public.) But — again, not a shocker here — I still found her dismayingly evasive on several questions: on Robert Johnson (do you believe his ridiculous clarification or do you think his comments were “out of bounds”?), on whether her opponents were qualified (she couldn’t just say yes?), on the bankruptcy bill (you voted for it in 2001 but was glad it didn’t pass?), and of course, on the politics of fear question, to take a few examples. But, as always, she had done her homework, she smartly went after Dubya a few times, and she had the talking points ready to attack on the Yucca Mountain question. (Without meaning to dismiss the important issue at hand, it’s safe to say “Yucca” is apparently Nevadan for “ethanol.”)

So, at any rate, I’d say Obama came off the best tonight, but Edwards and Clinton were both solid as well. (And I would presume supporters of the other two candidates would say the same, with perhaps the names rearranged.) More than anything, tonight was a chance for tempers to cool and for the party to show it was ready — despite the best efforts of Mr. Russert — to discuss matters of substance again. Still, with Nevada this Saturday and South Carolina right around the corner, I wouldn’t expect the next debate to be so congenial.

Morally Bankrupt, pt. II.

Even as the fundies rattle the leash, the House moves to placate the GOP’s real masters by approving the corporate-friendly bankruptcy bill 302-126. “Its passage by Congress is a victory for executives in the credit card, retail and auto financing industries who have pushed it for nearly a decade.” But, not to worry, y’all — the base is protected: The bill “preserve[s] loopholes that enable wealthy individuals who file for bankruptcy to shield unlimited amounts of money in complex trusts and in multimillion-dollar homes in states including Texas and Florida.”

“Morally Bankrupt.”

“So what does the bill do? It makes it harder for average people to file for bankruptcy protection; it makes it easier for landlords to evict a bankrupt tenant; it endangers child-support payments by giving a wider array of creditors a shot at post-bankruptcy income; it allows millionaires to shield an unlimited amount of equity in homes and asset-protection trusts; it makes it more difficult for small businesses to reorganize while opening new loopholes for the Enrons of the world; it allows creditors to provide misleading information; and it does nothing to rein in lending abuses that frequently turn manageable debt into unmanageable crises. Even in failure, ordinary Americans do not get a level playing field.” Salon‘s Arianna Huffington ably dissects the GOP bankruptcy legislation currently making its way through Congress. Update: It passes the Senate, with the help of 18 Dems. For shame.