"partisan Leftwing moonbat websites"? Like http://bigpicture.typepad.com/ ? That's Barry Ritholtz' site. He called this thing about two, maybe three years ago.
Did he claim that it was some sort of dark conspiracy on the part of the Republicans? Did he claim that the Republicans slipped the bill surreptitiously with the Democratic lawmakers and the Democratic president unaware? If so, please provide a link to where he made such claims.
When you use language like that, it appears that you dismiss any reality that doesn't fit your ideology by calling it "moonbat" or somesuch thing.
Niner, you of all people are not one to talk on this point. I used the term moonbat to refer to people who dismiss reality because of their extreme political views.
In any case, you seem to overlook the fact that it was a Clinton White House initiative that led to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. The Leftwingers are trying to make CFMA out to be some sort of evil plan on the part of the Republicans whereas in fact it was initiated and supported by the White House and had the backing of the vast majority of Democrats (and Republicans for that matter.) I'm not going to blame Clinton or the Democrats for it; I believe there was no particularly ill intent in the desire to modernize derivatives trading (though evidently some short-sidedness.) It's simply a matter of unintended consequences and now everyone is trying to cover their asses.
Do you have any documentation for this claim? The CFMA was inserted into an omnibus spending bill at the 11th hour, and never debated. It was authored by Republicans in both house and senate versions. Congress had no choice but to vote on it, and Clinton had no choice but to sign it or hold up funding for a significant fraction of the government. Clinton and the Democrats in Congress may well have been unaware that it was even in gigantic spending bill, since there was no debate. This was Dec 15, 2000. Not only should you not blame Clinton or the Democrats for it, you shouldn't even be mentioning them. That's just trying to deflect blame from where it rightly belongs. This is exhibit A for another failed Republican Ideology: All Regulation is Bad. The Unbridled Free Market is the Best Solution. Another trillion dollar error.
You see, what you wrote there is a good example. It appears you have not really bothered to research this. Instead you likely read some articles on partisan Leftwing websites, found them to be consistent with your political views, and are now going about propogating this as certain truth.
Yes, there is documentation. It's really not that hard to find. You have the text of the bills, you have the votes in the House, you have press releases from the White House and government departments, etc. Orginal source documentation - not partisan propoganada. The fact is that the CFMA (and the resulting deregulation) was a Clinton White House initiative from the very beginning. The idea that the Republicans would have been able to (or would have found it necessary) to secretly slip it into a spending bill without the Democrats being aware is nothing more than conspiracy mongering and defies any commonsense interpretation of the reality surrounding the issue. In any case, you can easily find this information for yourself on the web. If you can't locate it I can post some information in a couple of days; I don't have the time to make a long post right now.
Edited by Connor MacLeod, 26 September 2008 - 05:31 PM.
