Bowing to their Wall Street controllers aka contributors Senator Dodd's financial regulation bill is woefully weak and mediocre, but GOP senators go even further and try to prevent any regulation of the financial industry.

Reinstatement of Glass-Steagall is being ignored at all costs.

Bank reform legislation is a complete joke, and GOP legislators on Capitol are some of the leading clowns ignoring the will of the people as they push their phony populism.

Jim Hightower writes: "Wall Street executives are howling that there's no need for big bad government to tighten regulations over their financial dealings. We're not thieves, they huff, we're high-class professionals with auditors, boards of directors and shareholders guiding us. We can regulate ourselves – trust us!

"Uh... no. Let's look to Lehman Brothers for an object lesson in trusting Wall Street elites. When it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2008, the official word was that it was a victim of bad mortgages. Nothing amiss, just... unfortunate. Now, however, a newly-released bankruptcy report reveals that top executives at the investment house were desperately "Enroning" its books. Using an accounting flim-flam, they spent nearly a year before Lehman's dénouement manipulating its books to hide the rapidly deteriorating state of its financial condition.

"This "creative accounting" was done to deceive shareholders and Lehman's own board of directors. The CEO himself certified the misleading figures, and the report cites him for being "at least grossly negligent." The bank's accounting firm, Ernst & Young, also knew of the manipulation – but raised no protest.

"So this is why well-tailored, high-class professionals must be regulated: in a pinch, they cheat.

"But regulation must be truly independent, for guess who else knew about Lehman's financial shell game even as it was happening? The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, headed at the time by our present treasury secretary, Tim Geithner. He had dispatched officials to assess the bank's health, but they raised no alarm about the accounting gimmickry.

"Wall Street and the Fed have long been two peas in a cozy pod, with the so-called regulators treating the bankers as trusted colleagues. These giant banks deserve no public trust, but neither does the Fed."

But actually, Jim, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are making sure that any proposed "banking reform" legislation doesn't really impact too strongly against their banking buddies so they can continue their shady, crooked practices, using exotic financial tools to cheat and steal: the Democrats with weak, practically toothless regulation, and the GOP trying to kill any regulation.

And Obama and his Wall Street loving economic crew want the Fed, still under Bernanke courtesy of this president, that aided and abetted the financial crisis through either incompetence or collusion, to take charge of regulating their financial industry cronies.

Cozy, isn't it?  Washington at its usual screw regular Americans, protect their rich donors, best.