Yesterday, seven unemployed constituents of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) staged a sit-in at his office in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to protest the congressman’s decision not to hold any free public town halls during the August recess. An additional 100 protesters picketed outside the office. Politico reported this week that Ryan, Chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, will only speak to residents who are willing to pay $15 for access.

It’s customary for representatives to host free town halls open to the public so constituents can ask questions and weigh in on their elected officials’ votes. But Ryan and other conservative congressman who have been facing angry crowds recently have decided to limit their availability to only those willing to open their wallets. This didn’t sit well with many of Ryan’s constituents who are struggling just to get by and don’t think they should have to pay to get an audience with their congressman:

Ryan is currently vacationing with his family, but the seven individuals sitting in his office say they have all tried to contact Ryan, multiple times, and have received the same generic email response. Traditionally when members of Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation break for the August recess they hold town hall meetings where they listen to concerns off constituents in their districts. Ryan, so far, has only scheduled one “public” appearance at the Whitenall Park Rotary September 6 banquet. Attendees will be required to pay a $15 fee to be one of the lucky 300 to meet with the Representative. I spoke with four of the Ryan Seven this afternoon and they all said they were planning to stay “as long as it takes.”

One of the protesters, Scott Page, says he’s been let go from two jobs in the past two years. One position was outsourced to Mexico, and for the second, he was required to train an individual in China to be his replacement. Page said he hoped Ryan would “have a heart” and “take time to listen to the unemployed in his backyard instead of only the business owners.” “I don’t have $15 to ask Rep. Ryan questions,” he added, “so I guess this is the only means I have to talk to him.” Several of the protesters have posted testimonial videos on the Wisconsin Jobs Now website. Unemployment in Ryan’s home state has been growing recently.

Instead of meeting with the protesters, Ryan’s staff called the police. The seven protesters occupying Ryan’s office left the building last night after negotiations with police to end the sit-in peacefully. The seven praised Ryan’s office staff for being “amazing” and “polite,” but had no warm words for Ryan.

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has taken up the relatively esoteric fight against the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, telling anybody who will listen that it must be repealed, along the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and other banking regulations. Last night on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show, he even went so far as to say that Dodd-Frank is “killing the banking industry” and offered it’s repeal as one of his top ideas for job creation:

GINGRICH: They oughta come back in and repeal the Dodd-Frank bill that’s killing the banking industry now. I met today with people in Thai community in Los Angeles, people in the Korean community, people in the Chinese community. In two of the three communities, they thought that the Dodd-Frank bill was killing local banks, killing small business, crippling the housing industry.

Watch it:

It’s unclear how Gingrich thinks a law that hasn’t even been fully implemented could already be killing one of the most powerful industries in the country, but he is hardly alone among his partisans in claiming that regulations are too tough on poor Wall Street.

Just a few years short years after the nation’s biggest banks helped bring down the global economy, due in large part to lax and dysfunctional regulation, most Republicans now oppose any efforts to further reign in large financial institutions. Some, like Gingrich, want to roll back regulations that existed even before the financial colllape — Sarbanes–Oxley was implemented in response to the Enron and other major corporate accounting scandals — while Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), goes much further, suggesting in his 2010 book that all banking regulations are unconstitutional.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has also called for a full repeal of Dodd-Frank, while Mitt Romney, a former financial services executive, decried “the level of over-regulation and burden which has been placed on the financial services” and likened bank regulators to “gargoyles,”

So is Dodd-Frank “killing” the industry? In fact, “bank profits rose substantially” in the first quarter of the year, with banks showing the biggest profits since before the recession. Things were sunny in the second quarter as well:

– Profits at JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s second largest bank, were up 13 percent.

– Third-largest Citigroup’s profits soared 23 percent.

– Fourth-largest Wells Fargo’s profits shot up 29 percent.

– Fifth-largest Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, “disappointed investors” when it merely “more than doubled its profits.”

–Sixth-largest Morgan Stanley’s profits were up an impressive 17 percent.

The only top-tier bank to have a rough second quarter was the nation’s largest, Bank of America, which has been dragged down in part by its acquisition of investment house Merril Lynch — a move that, ironically, would not have been allowed under the Glass–Steagall Act, the repeal of which Gingrich spearheaded as House Speaker in the 90s.

A top Bank of America executive was caught on camera yesterday whispering to Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), “Bank of America. We’ll help you out,” as the GOP presidential candidate attended New Hampshire’s Politics and Eggs breakfast. The executive has been identified by the financial website Zero Hedge as James Mahoney, Director of Public Policy for the bank. Mahoney is on the board of directors for the New England Council, the sponsors of the Politics and Eggs breakfast. Watch it:

But far from being just a regional banker, Mahoney is a key national executive. In a statement about the incident, bank spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told Politico the only “help” Mahoney was offering was nonpartisan policy expertise. Di Rita said Mahoney does policy and not lobbying for the bank. This unsolicited reassurance from a top Bank of America emissary comes just days after Perry appeared to publicly threaten the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke.

Over the years Gov. Perry has benefited greatly from Bank of America’s financial support, and it appears that largesse will continue as he seeks the presidency on a platform of — coincidentally enough — bank deregulation. His gubernatorial campaigns have received $125,900 from Bank of America’s PAC and executives since 2003. During the 2010 cycle alone, Perry’s campaign received $30,160 from the bank’s PAC and executives. According to Texans for Public Justice, Bank of America has also given generously Republican Governors Association, which Perry led until recently and just happens to be his largest donor, contributing $4 million between 2001 and 2010.

It’s no mystery why banking executives are rushing to give Perry their support. Of all the GOP candidates, Perry is the most fervently opposed to banking regulation. As Matt Yglesias pointed out, in his book Fed Up, Perry expresses the extreme view that all banking regulation and consumer financial protection is unconstitutional.

Bank of America has been in a world of financial trouble recently, with its stock down more than 50 percent since January, as it faces a growing wave of mortgage litigation. In recent weeks it has been engaged “in the corporate version of a yard sale.” The bank announced today that it will be cutting at least 10,000 jobs, laying off 3,500 workers this quarter alone. As ThinkProgress has reported, until now Mitt Romney has been the candidate with the most backing from Wall Street.

Earlier this week, Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) held a town hall in Sandwich, Illinois, where constituents angrily denounced his right-wing policies. During one particularly amusing moment, Hultgren tried to defend his stand against raising taxes on the wealthy, drawing a round of laughs from the audience.

“I’m not out there trying to coddle anybody,” he defensively claimed. He then went on to explain that, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy, Congress could adopt a bill that would allow the rich to make voluntary donations to the Treasury and have them count as charitable contributions:

HULTGREN: I’m not out there trying to coddle anybody. In fact, I support a bill that allows the super rich if they want to give more money to the federal government it could be a charitable contribution.

(audience laughs)

HULTGREN: I think that makes sense! Use it as a charitable contribution.

Watch it:

Following an op-ed by billionaire Warren Buffet calling on Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy and accusing it of “coddling” the rich, many conservatives have reacted by lashing out at Buffet, demanding that he simply voluntarily pay more. Hultgren appears to be taking on this cry.

It’s unclear what bill exactly the congressman says he supports. ThinkProgress has contacted his office and is awaiting a reply. (HT: jessicaswenson1981 YouTube account)

ThinkProgress caught Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) this week saying that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s actions to stimulate the economy are “treasonous” and issuing a veiled threat of violence against the Fed chief. “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas,” Perry said.

Several Republicans have called Perry out for using this sort of language. 2012 presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said that Perry’s remarks were “completely out of bounds.” “You can’t be calling Bernanke a traitor,” said Rep. Peter King (R-NY). “Intimating the Federal Reserve Chairman is guilty of treason is not going to create more confidence in voters about you,” added Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH).

Former Reagan and George H.W. Bush economic adviser Bruce Bartlett labeled Perry “an idiot” for his remarks. However, one GOP’er doesn’t think that Perry went too far. During an interview with Lou Dobbs on Fox Business, former half-term governor Sarah Palin said that she might “have used similar terms” to describe Bernanke’s actions:

PALIN: [Perry] called it like he saw it and I always respect people for doing so. What Governor Perry is voicing concern about is something I wrote about on Facebook pages about ten months ago, this quantitative easing or monetizing our debt, essentially printing money out of thin air, which will eventually devalue our dollar and, I think, lead to inflation, in order to make it look like our debt isn’t as bad as it really is, and Governor Perry was voicing great concerns that many of us share. He just used some more candid terms, I think, than some of us would have used.

DOBBS: Even you?

PALIN: Well, yeah, that’s a good point. Perhaps I would have used similar terms. But I do share his concern though.

Watch it:

Palin, of course, is no stranger to violent rhetoric of her own. Perry, for his part, is standing by his remarks, telling CNN, “I am just passionate about the issue and we stand by what we said.” “The governor is going to continue talking about getting America back to work in a tone that everyone understands,” added a campaign spokesperson. Not only were Perry’s remarks atrocious, but he also seemed to be admitting that the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing would be good for the economy.

Earlier this month, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) disavowed the anti-tax pledge promulgated by the virulently anti-tax Grover Norquist and his organization, Americans for Tax Reform. Though he had signed the pledge, which says that any increase in revenue must be offset with a corresponding tax cut somewhere, Fortenberry said that he “informed the organization I don’t consider (the earlier pledge) binding.” “I don’t care to be associated with it. It’s too constraining,” he added.

Yesterday, Norquist lost another devotee in Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), who told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser’s editorial board that “though he would not vote to increase taxes, he would not again sign a pledge binding him to not do so”:

Boustany, like more than 230 of his peers in the House of Representatives, signed lobbyist Grover Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”

“I will not sign another pledge,” Boustany said. “We have to have the flexibility to do the right thing for American people.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has also clashed publicly with Norquist for promulgating “the ludicrous argument that eliminating tax earmarks is a tax increase.” Last week, Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) faced a backlash at one of his town halls over his support for Norquist’s pledge. “You work for North Dakota residents, not some guy from another state,” West Fargo resident Don Frost told Berg.

This morning, Republican Governors Association (RGA) Chairman and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where he heaped praise on the policy vision of Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), saying that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy. McDonnell then complained that “this [Obama] administration is doing just the opposite,” saying that it is enacting “more taxes, more regulation, more unionization”:

MCDONNELL: Well I think on job creation and economic development, he’s laid out some things that will really help to stimulate the economy. With tax cuts, and regulatory cuts and litigation reform and those kinds of things that get to the heart and soul of what you need to do to promote business. This administration is doing just the opposite. More taxes, more regulation, more unionization. It’s the wrong policy.

Watch it:

Apparently unbeknownst to McDonnell, union membership has actually been declining in the United States. A report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics from Jaunary 2011 pointed out that union membership fell by more than 600,000 members in 2010, and that union membership as a percentage of the working population was much higher in 1983 when Ronald Reagan was president:

In 2010, the union membership rate—the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union—was 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers.

It’s unfortunate that McDonnell is not right about there being “more unionization” under President Obama. As the Center for American Progress’ Karla Walters and David Madland showed in a report they published last January, the decline in unionization in the United States correlates to skyrocketing inequality:

The last time there was a major spike in union membership was actually in 2008, under former president George W. Bush.