GOP Drops Objections To Reform Debate, Democracy Now! Interview

April 29th, 2010 - by: danny

I will be hosting News Dissector Radio on ProgressiveRadioNetwork.com 10 AM to 11 AM EDT. Financial reform update and interviews with student activists on educational cutbacks.

DEMOCRACY NOW! UPSCALES

I was at Democracy Now’s new headquarters yesterday morning. It happens to be in my neighborhood. Wow. Impressive. A real facility that is functional and attractive! I am told they are even running classes there for media students. They deserve the best, given their commitment and the quality of their work even if it made me just a tad jealous. As they open up new digs, we are, alas, shutting down an old one. At the same time, I was grateful to be there and be on the show because I know how important it is for viewers and listeners. Have a look at Amy and Juan’s interview with me about my new film and see what you think. If you like it, share it with friends.

GOP WINS CONCESSION ON BAILOUTS, NOW WILLING TO DEBATE BILL
WE MUST REGULATE RATINGS AGENCIES
MARCH ON WALL STREET TODAY

TheNation.com: Goldman Exec: It’s Unfortunate To Have Shi*&y Deal, Piece of Crap “On E-Mail by Robert Scheer

MSNBC: GOP drops objections to banking reform debate; Senate Republicans will now try to change Democrats’ proposal on floor

AP: The most sweeping new controls on financial institutions since the Great Depression are a big step closer to approval in Congress.

The changes, aimed at preventing a recurrence of the crisis that knocked the nation’s financial system to its knees in 2008, advanced Wednesday when Republicans abandoned their blockade in the Senate. Now, the battle begins over crucial details and that could take at least two weeks. The House has already passed its version.

Democrats and Republicans agree the Senate will ultimately pass landmark changes.

Sen Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said the ‘biggest obstacle’ remaining between him and Dodd is a proposed independent consumer regulator to oversee mortgages, credit cards and other consumer loans.”

Washington Monthly – Should the agency be independent?

As Congress hammers out its landmark financial reform bill, one of the most controversial points of debate is the question of where to put the government’s new financial watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Should it be a freestanding agency, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, or rolled into the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve? Liberal Democrats have argued fiercely for making the CFPA independent, on the theory that an autonomous agency will be more powerful and less vulnerable to pressure from the financial sector. Republicans seem to agree with liberal’s theory, and fear that a freestanding agency would tend toward overregulation. What is really at issue in this debate, as in so many others, is the question of bureaucratic power.

In a probing essay-review in the May/June issue of the Washington Monthly, Steven Teles of John Hopkins University and the New America Foundation uses a new history of the Food and Drug Administration–an agency which for decades ranked among the most formidable in Washington–as a vehicle for exploring why some agencies are granted far more autonomy and clout than others. Delving into Daniel Carpenter’s new book, Reputation and Power, Teles finds the answer boils down largely to a single factor: status. Bureaucracies that are seen and admired as powerful guardians of the public interest are less likely to fall prey to political whims or special interests. Extending these findings to the CFPA debate, Teles argues that, contrary to popular belief, the agency would have more autonomy and regulatory clout if placed inside the Federal Reserve, which is taken seriously by the financial industry and has the reputation and resources to attract top talent. Click here to read a sneak preview of Teles’s treatise, “Brains on Drugs.”

Daily Beast: Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal offers a summary of the financial-reform plan that Republicans released on Tuesday.

Possible deal on liquidating failed financial institutions. TPMDC: “Without going into great detail, Dodd trumpeted the fact that he and Shelby have largely come to an understanding over one major aspect of the legislation–how to unwind large, failed financial institutions–and said he believes that will be enough to move the bill forward, despite continuing disagreement over other key sections.”

FEDHEADS: NYT: President Obama plans to nominate three new Federal Reserve governors on Thursday, a source familiar with the plans said.

The prospective nominees are: Janet Yellen, currently president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Sarah Bloom Raskin, currently Maryland’s top bank regulator, and Peter Diamond, an economist at MIT. Yellen will be nominated to be vice-chairman of the central bank. The White House had previously acknowledged that the three were under consideration to join the seven-member Fed board of governors.

Also in Fedland: NYT: Fed Keeps Short-Term Interest Rates Near Zero

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept short-term interest rates near zero and maintained, as it has for months, that rates would stay at that level for “an extended period.”

Despite intense market speculation, the central bank disclosed nothing about the fate of the $2.3 trillion balance sheet it accumulated as it acquired mortgage-backed securities in an effort to prop up the housing market.

NOTE: The demand for more accountability by the Fed, and an audit of its funds, the issues raised by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson, among others, have been DROPPED from the “reform” bill.

OTHER ISSUES

Al Giordano, The Battle for Immigration Reform

“When on the night of the passage of the US health care law March 21, I wrote that the next big battle would and should be immigration reform, I had no idea that the state of Arizona was about to polarize the issue with the passage of its Juan Crow law last week. It is a law so unwieldy, unenforceable, unconstitutional and un-American that its authors inadvertently gifted to reform proponents that ‘fierce urgency of now’ that Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke of as a basic building block of change.

“Ã¢â‚¬Â¦Under radar, Obama and his party’s Organizing for America army has, for months already, been doing the stealth community organizing spade work, preparing the ground for this perfect storm. Throughout the country, organizers show up at citizenship swearing-in ceremonies with voter registration forms, and in key areas have begun door-to-door canvasses in Hispanic neighborhoods previously untouched by electoral machines because they had so few eligible voters.”ws:

What The War Looks Like On The US Side, Michael Yon, The Big Guns Of Kandahar

Return of the Death Squads Honduran oligarchs target members of the National Front of Popular Resistance.

WORLD

WSJ: U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was caught on a live microphone calling a voter a “bigoted woman” after she confronted him over government policies. In an interview with the BBC, a visibly distressed Brown apologized to the voter over the incident, which could prove one of the most costly gaffes of any recent U.K. election campaign.

Who helped cause the economic Greece crisis?

OH, ARIZONA

Arizona’s looming tourism disaster By kos (hisself) h/t DXM

Arizona xenophobes have put the tourism trade at serious risk.

“Backers of the ethnic cleansing law in Arizona claim that nationwide calls for boycotts of Arizona won’t amount to much. Maybe they will, or maybe they won’t, but [Arizona's looming tourism disaster] won’t be so easy to laugh off.

“‘The Mexican government warned its citizens Tuesday to use extreme caution if visiting Arizona because of a tough new law that requires all immigrants and visitors to carry U.S.-issued documents or risk arrest.’”

[SNIP]

“‘With Arizona’s international visitorship decimated, the state now must rely on domestic visitors – many of which come from liberal California, where cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are seeking official boycotts of the state. Late Tuesday, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), leader of the California State Senate, also proposed a statewide boycott of Arizona.’”

The News Dissector