Bair is the Republican whom President Obama reappointed to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, but she is protecting the interest of taxpayers as no Democrat has in this administration, and she needs your support. Huge financial decisions are being made by this government, involving trillions in future obligations of US taxpayers, and Bair has been a rare effective voice for the interests of ordinary folk.

Once an aide to then-Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.), Bair was appointed by...]]> Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 How insulting that we must now accept Summers' assurance that the Obama administration will "move quickly to reform a weak and outdated regulatory system to better protect consumers, investors and businesses." This from the guy who, as President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary, pushed the deregulation legislation making the subsequent financial crimes of Wall Street legal. The "toxic derivatives" that we taxpayers are now forced to purchase from the Wall Street hustlers were deliberately shielded from all government regulation, thanks to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Summers got Congress to pass in the closing days of the Clinton administration with the same urgency...]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 This was more than a presidential photo-op gone wildly awry. One might suspect that the weekend event was designed originally to draw attention from the Friday release of the long awaited Senate Armed Services Committee's report on Bush's torture policy. A report that unanimously concluded that it was the White House and not a few bad apples that "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." The report, endorsed by all Republican senators on the committee, including ranking minority member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cited former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora's testimony that...]]> Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Maybe he picked a bunch of Wall Street insiders to send a comforting message to the financial community that Obama was turning to folks just like them to get us out of the mess that they created. So far, Wall Street hasn't done anything to pay back the taxpayers for the upward-of-a-trillion dollars wasted on that bailout. The credit markets remain frozen, and indeed these banking grinches are stealing Christmas by further cutting individuals' credit lines.

If there is a grand arc to Obama's appointments strategy, it seems aimed at providing the appearance of continuity on the part of a leader who still promises to be very different. Clearly that was the case in retaining Robert...]]> Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Cynicism rules even as ritualistic prayer breaks, as depicted in the film W., abound. The pretense of piety earns the president and his accomplices a get-out-of-jail-free card; at no point in the film do any in the top ranks of this administration--captured so accurately and depressingly--accept one iota of accountability for how much damage they have wrought. Unrepentant, the same Republican apparatchiks are employing the familiar Rovian tactic of divide and conquer in seeking to continue their hold on power. Once again, they seek to focus attention on hot-button social issues and patriotic litmus tests to draw attention from the fact that family values are being destroyed by the loss...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Saakashvili's attempt to compare the Russian response with that of the "Stalinist Soviet Union" is a nutty reference to a Georgian-born tyrant who ruled Russia and who is still revered in much of his native Georgia. But when you need a new Stalin to get a Cold War going, President Dmitry Medvedev and the elected members of a unanimous Russian parliament will have to do. And McCain is very happy to have this card to play.

McCain can win only as a war president. He neither knows, nor cares, much about the economic meltdown, which is the consequence of the deregulation mania that he has supported at every turn during his career in the Senate. If McCain had to run on his economic...]]> Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 The economy is in a downward spiral, the national debt is at an all-time high, the dollar is an international disgrace, and inflation in July had the steepest rise in 27 years, driven by oil prices fivefold higher than when President Bush invaded the nation with the world's second-largest petroleum reserves.

While Mideast oil-rich nations we protect refuse to fully open the oil spigots as payback for our military efforts, McCain celebrates Gen. David Petraeus as his No. 1 hero for "victory" in Iraq. Aside from the reality that victory there is now defined as returning to the level of stability provided by Saddam Hussein, whom the Bush administration admits had nothing to do with...]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500