Dear Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA): Please Don't Insult My Intelligence When Asking Me for Money!

Dear Rep. Edward Markey,

I ripped up your solicitation letter asking for a campaign donation because I felt that your statements insult my intelligence. If I were you, I wouldn't hook my wagon to President Obama's star or to Sen. John Kerry, who you hope to replace as the junior senator of Massachusetts.

The first sentence of your solicitation letter reads, "If you've had it with Republicans opposing everything in the hope of crippling President Obama and the progressive agenda . . . 

". . . and if you share my strong belief that we need to take bold action to put Americans back to work and address the growing income inequality that's holding our nation back . . . 

". . . then I urge you to get involved and make your voice heard for working families by supporting my campaign for the U.S. Senate today.

"This is no ordinary race. It's a Special Election to replace John Kerry."

Your name, Rep. Markey, has been mentioned in the same sentence as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). You have been described as an honest broker, just like Sen. Warren.

So if you are an honest broker and smarter than you sound in your solicitation letter, don't insult my intelligence. I know that Republicans aren't the only obstructionist crooks in Congress. Corruption has infected both political parties, so hyperpartisan references to "progressives" like Pres. Obama and Sen. Kerry, as though they are models worthy of emulation, are lost on me.

I've read several books about the financial crisis on Wall Street that tanked our economy: First I read Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera's book about Wall Street, "All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis," then Charles H. Ferguson's "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America," and then former TARP bailout Inspector General Neil Barofsky's account of his struggles to do his job in "Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street."

It's clear to me and clear to Ferguson and Barofsky that Pres. Obama, the Obama administration's Justice Department, and former Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, a creature of Wall Street, are the bad guys, not the good guys. Otherwise they would have allowed Barofsky to do his job instead of obstructing him at every turn.

Ironically, Neil Barofsky, a card-carrying Democrat who contributed to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, was more than just a little surprised that Pres. George W. Bush appointed him to be the bailout Inspector General in the first place.

Barofsky was shocked. In fact, he asked the official offering him the job, "Does Pres. Bush know I'm a Democrat and donated to Barack Obama's campaign?"

"This is a merit appointment," he was told. "We need someone who's kind of a dick for this job, and you're kind of a dick."

Well actually, Barofsky was a prosecutor and may be again. You have to be kind of a dick to be an effective prosecutor on Wall Street. Nicey-nice doesn't put criminals in jail, especially on Wall Street, where there's a revolving door of government officials responsible for enforcing regulations on Wall Street who ease off the regulation enforcement during their tenure in order to secure a soft landing in a private Wall Street job once they leave government.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Elizabeth Warren, now Sen. Warren (D-MA) emerge as heroes in the fight to prevent Secretary Tim Geithner in succeeding to make Barofsky report to him instead of to Congress. Sen. Charles Grassley made sure that former IG Barofsky continued to report to Congress.

Still, the White House and Sec. Geithner managed to do a great deal to shower Wall Street miscreants with bailout money without requiring any accountability in how they spent the funds or reporting back on how they spent the funds.

In fact, according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Obama and Sen. Chris Dodd, the main beneficiaries of AIG's campaign donations ($100,000 each), prevented Sen. Wyden and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) from adding an amendment to claw back huge executive bonuses paid to AIG executives, most of whom should be in prison, in the form of taxes.

Rewarding Wall Street's corporate criminals for gambling away our economy and refusing to indict any of them prior to the election of 2012 was an inside job. At one point during his 2012 presidential campaign, Pres. Obama got more campaign donations from Wall Street, even from Mitt Romney's own firm, than Romney did. In the end though, Mitt Romney's antipathy to business regulation won him more Wall Street campaign contributions than Barack Obama.

Pres. Obama won reelection, which makes me wonder why he'd consider enacting the Romney economic plan. Why cut Social Security and other parts of the social safety net? Isn't that a Republican idea?