Minnesota Farmers Union

(June 20, 2010) - It's just a guess but I'd bet Blanche Lincoln, chair of the Senate's Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, would be a tough poker player.

The reason is simple: Despite a Congressional record as clean as a hound's tooth-Lincoln has never lost an election, never been within a country mile of scandal and rarely loses policy fights-handicappers still bet against her and, almost always, lose their bets.

The latest losers were Big Labor and Big "D" Democrats who spent $10 million in a nasty Arkansas primary fight this spring to make her a lame duck. Lincoln, the daughter of a rice and cotton farmer, gave as good as she got and beat her challenger in a June 8 run-off. She'll stand for her third term as an Arkansas' senator this November.

Next up are the Bailout Banksters and the members of Congress they keep in their hip pockets. They hope to dump both Lincoln and her tough derivatives amendment in financial reform bill now being pieced together by a House-Senate conference committee. They have billions of reasons to try.

The in-the-dark derivative market, created and run by giant Wall Street banks, was the grenade that nearly blew up the world's economy Oct. 2008. That unregulated, massive mess required hundreds of billions of dollars of your money to bail out the banks' casino-like trading.