Our access bloggers are positioning him as a populist in their most recent fund-raising letter, but despite being on the financial services committee, the best his advocates can seem to come up with is the "Cash for Clunkers" program. Did Grayson do anything to nobble this abomination from Barney Frank, which crippled the Consumer Financial Protection Agency? Granted, Grayson's signed on to Ron Paul's bill to audit the Fed -- along with 307 others. Does anyone know if Grayson's done anything more than throw rhetorical red meat to "progressives"?

Mel Watt, from NC's 12th district, is leading the charge this time. Coincidentally, I'm sure, Bank of America headquarters is also in his district.

If you disagree with this, I suggest you let Mr. Watt, and anyone who has not cosponsored this bill know.

Bloomberg:

Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Issues of financial reform and regulation can be intimidating to laymen (this layman anyway) because of its insanely complex nature. It is easy to imagine the system as a big Jenga tower, and moving one piece might cause the whole thing to come crashing down. No one wants to be seen as inadvertently - but earnestly! - advocating for a ruinous policy. Of course, that means the opposite extreme is then in play: Turning into Hamlet and endlessly agonizing over what to do at the expense of actually doing something. Not to mention the fact that, not to put too fine a point on it, wide swaths of our leadership has for years now been deliberately advocating ruinous policies both at home and abroad. That should certainly make those of us in the unwashed masses comfortable with forcefully advocating what seems reasonable based on available data. It's not as though we could screw it up any worse.

Still, it would be nice to have a rule of thumb, compass point or guiding principle to go by. Having been a reasonably close observer of the meltdown and its aftermath, here is one I have come up with: It is necessary (but not sufficient) that any proposal be strenuously opposed by Goldman Sachs (GS). In a largely protected industry Goldman appears to be the closest thing to untouchable as we have. It is in Matt Taibbi's already-legendary description "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." It has installed a revolving door between the highest levels of the government and its board room, enjoys privileged lines of communication with the Treasury secretary exceeding even that of our closest allies, was happily positioned as a key competitor died, then days later benefited as a key debtor was drenched in cash (Yves Smith called it a "massive backdoor subsidy to the likes of Goldman"), and as it happens was the second largest contributor to the president in the 2008 election cycle. More so than any other player in financial services, GS always seems to be nearby when bad things happen.

[I have dear friends who will vehemently disagree with me about this. But so be it; I have to make a choice!]

Now that Edwards is out of the race I find myself, like VastLeft, surprised, even chagrined, to find myself endorsing Hillary. But there it is. I wish this could be something other than a rambling, impressionistic post, but heck: Maybe that's how we all make decisions anyhow.

My bottom line is this:

I feel that I know Hillary. For all her faults, I know her.

I want to entrust the very challenging future of our country to someone I know. Simple as that.

I don't feel that I know Obama, and the more I learn about him, the less I like.