Matt Taibbi on Maria Cantwell and Financial Reform

Matt Taibbi:

Meanwhile the passage of the final Financial Regulatory Reform Bill has been hopelessly complicated by a number of factors, the biggest among them being the death of Robert Byrd. But with the news today that Maria Cantwell is back on board with the bill, it looks like the Dems have the 60 votes they need to pass this thing. The story of what it took to get those 60 votes is sort of amazing — again, I have more on this coming out later — but let's just say the whittling process has been in overdrive for almost all of the last month and while all of the major "reforms" are still in place, each of them is getting smaller and smaller with every passing minute. And they still could get whittled down even more in the week and a half or so that's supposedly left until the Senate votes on the bill.

As one Senator I spoke with yesterday said, "This thing is in play until they put the final nail in the coffin." MORE...