Fairness
by digby
Can someone tell me why a Democratic congress would allow this to happen?
The people who had been invited to testify had flown in from around the country with their credit card bills in hand, only to learn that they couldn't talk unless they would sign a waiver that would permit the credit card companies to make public anything they wanted to tell about their financial records, their credit histories, their purchases, and so on. The Republicans and Democrats had worked out a deal "to be fair to the credit card lenders." These people couldn't say anything unless they were willing to let the credit card companies strip them naked in public.
The hold the credit card companies have on congress is obscene. And at a time of increasing financial insecurity and economic turbulence, this fealty to their corporate masters is more and more untenable.
This one is particularly egregious. The credit card companies testified for hours about what good citizens they were and how they treated their customers like kings. They provided no proof or back up for their claims but when average citizens wanted to testify, they demanded that they be able to smear them by releasing information about their Victoria Secret purchases or telling the world they were "extravagant" spenders by buying a new television set.
This is the kind of thing that's going to become a huge, real life issue over the next months of the presidential campaign. I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Democrats aren't going at this with everything they have. This is the kind of thing that hits Americans where they live and would get them far out front on these pressing economic issues. Would they really rather lose the election than cross the credit tcard companies? What's the point of that?
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