FDL enforcer and sycophant Phoenix Woman coos:

Congratulations, Jane!

This is true bipartisanship — not corporatist hooey.

And why? 96 to 0 Senators voted for a one-time audit of the Fed's activities during the bailouts. That's rather like 100% of the Korean people voting for Kim Il-Sung. Because with numbers like that, you can be sure of one thing:

The vote is complete kabuki. In the Senate, the only thing 100% of Senators are ever going to agree on is something they think won't impact them personally, like naming a post office after the mom who invented apple pie. I mean, the vote to enter World War II was "to 1," and not "to 0"!

Blogs that everybody hates and nobody reads have been pointing out, vociferously and continually, that the bailouts have no transparency and no accountability, since 2008. This would be 2010. So where were the "progressive" blogs when the deal was going down? And for the last two years? I mean, besides screaming "Look! Over there! Sarah Palin!" and running the so-called "public option" bait and switch on behalf of Obama's HCR insurance company bailout? Just to make the baseline crystal clear, I'll reprint most of a post from 2008-11-28. You see that nothing has, er, changed:

For the American people, things have not worked out.

1. Credit has not been unfrozen (which was the ostensible purpose of the bailout; see Title I of the legislation) [Still true, 2010-05-12. -- lambert].

2. Trust in the markets has not been restored [Still true, 2010-05-12; see the recent 968-point drop. -- lambert].

3. We don't even know who got the money. [Still true, 2010-05-12. The bill may do this. See below. -- lambert]

4. We still don't know how big the Big Shitpile is [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert] .

For Big Money, things have worked out fine, just fine:

1. The bankers who created the mess continue to receive billions in salaries and bonuses [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert].

2. The bankers are hoarding the money, or, through acquisitions, creating even more institutions that will be too big to fail [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert].

3. The process continues to lack transparency [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert].

4. The program is riddled with conflicts of interest [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert].

5. The bailout programs of which TARP is a part amount to a financial dictatorship* [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert].

World GDP is about $44 trillion a year. The bailouts amount to around $2 trillion, so we've given one man, Hank Paulson, control over a measurable fraction of the world economy, while not holding him accountable for anything. [Still true, 2010-05-12. True, though the figureheads have changed. A one-time audit does not address ongoing accountability. --lambert] Meanwhile, the intellectually and morally corrupt gang of tricksters and thieves who created the crash continue on their merry way, completely unremorseful for selling toxic waste to fools. Well, done all. Because, after all, nobody could have predicted.... [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert]

Please, Congress. And Democrats. When you go back in session, please follow Nouriel Roubini's advice and give help to the people who need it for the winter: Food stamps, unemployment benefits, and aid to state and local governments, who are having to shut down programs just when people need them the most. [The bare minimum from Ds and "progressives," 2010-05-12. --lambert] And on the bailout? Stop pouring water into a bucket that's got a hole in the bottom! [Who needs a bailout when banks borrow at 0%, lend at 3.5%, and the market is rigged? --lambert]

NOTE Let's remember that the bailout -- the Bush + Reid + Pelosi + Obama + Paulson bailout bill, or TARP -- is a creation of the entire Village; Obama owns it just as much as the rest of 'em. The Big Give was and is a truly bipartisan effort carried on in the spirit of unity. Obama is being consulted as the process evolves, and Obama, the leader of the Democratic Party, worked the phones to secure its passage. [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert]

NOTE * There's no single place to look for a bottom line on the bailout [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert]. Of the estimated $2 trillion so far, only the $700 billion for TARP has any form of accountability at all -- the unitary executive will continue at least 'til the end of the Bush administration -- and $350 billion of that was gone before Congress even managed to appoint the members of the review panel that the TARP legislation mandated. The panel's members aren't bad at all, but it looks to me like they'll be regulating how the barn door is closed, cleaning up after the Unity Pony, and not much else. [Still true, 2010-05-12. --lambert]

What happened during the bailouts was the largest upward transfer of wealth in world history, and the entire process took place with no transparency and no accountability whatever, seamlessly, during the Bush and the Obama administrations. Every single dollar of the trillions transferred -- every single dollar -- is public money, and should be used for public purpose (Article I, section 8: "... to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof"; Preamble: "... promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty"). Did the Bush and Obama administrations do that? Of course not.

That's the issue: Did the bailouts use public money for a public purpose? Bernie Sanders' pissant little sellout doesn't come near to addressing it nor, quelle surprise, do our career "progressives," let alone either legacy party.

So I had to chuckle when I got the FDL money-raising mail immediately following the latest "progressive" exhibition of total winnitude. I mean, can we get a cut? For working hard to create the climate of opinion? No? Why?

NOTE Via Economic Populist, here's the text of the Sanders Amendment as it now reads:

Comptroller General of the United States (in this subsection referred to as the ‘‘Comptroller General’’) shall conduct a one-time audit of all loans and other financial assistance provided during the period beginning on December 1, 2007 and ending on the date of enactment of this Act by the Board of Governors under the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, the Term Securities Lending Facility, the Term Auction Facility, Maiden Lane, Maiden Lane II, Maiden Lane III, the agency Mortgage-Backed Securities program, foreign currency liquidity swap lines, and any other program created as a result of the third undesignated paragraph of section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act.

"One-time," OK. But doesn't "provided" seem a little slippery? As I parse that, a program that hadn't ended when the Act was passed couldn't be audited. Can one of our lawyers clarify?

UPDATE More detail here. Apparently, the Vitter amendment (!!) will strengthen the Sanders amendment.

UPDATE Modified rapture. James Kwak finishes up his mostly positive roundup this way:

And, here’s a parting thought. The Senate may dazzle us with a 96–1 vote promising voters no more bailouts. That’s terrific. Thanks. But, hello? We still own about 80% of AIG. And AIG has not yet paid back its loans from the Fed. So, let’s get serious. Yes. I am glad that 96 senators agree that with regard to future messes, Wall Street should do its own clean up. But as for now, like the oil spilling into the Gulf, the mess continues and we have not been repaid. And, the mess, millions of jobs lost, double digit unemployment, massive cuts to state and local services, caused by the reckless practices on Wall Street remains. Thus, I welcome another bipartisan vote to spinoff the swap desks and ban the most dangerous swaps, since the financial sector has shown it cannot stop its toxic sludge from spilling into our economy and it has not completed the cleanup.

Sure, the Sanders amendment is good. But nothing on offer is of sufficient scale to match the problem -- not even close.