Elizabeth Warren Calls Out Wall Street
The big banks face a choice. They can agree to sensible reforms that protect consumers and rein in the excesses of the past decades. Or they can simply decide to screw customers, but do it openly this time.
 |
||
There was much to mock about this past weekend's Tea Party convention: the low turnout, Tom Tancredo's repulsive immigrant bashing, and, of course, Sarah Palin's keynote lite. But it would be a huge mistake to dismiss the movement that led to the event. Yes, some of the Tea Party movement is ugly. Yes, some of the Tea Party movement is race-based. Yes, some of the Tea Party movement is being bankrolled by conservative political groups -- and all of it promoted by Fox News. But focusing only on those elements obscures the fact that some of what's fueling the movement is based on a completely legitimate anger directed at Washington and the political establishment of both parties. Think of the Tea Party movement as a boil alerting us to the infection lurking under the skin of the body politic.
The big banks face a choice. They can agree to sensible reforms that protect consumers and rein in the excesses of the past decades. Or they can simply decide to screw customers, but do it openly this time.
Our policies have helped move us from a situation where we were losing a nightmarish 750,000 jobs per month to one in which we are a lot closer to adding jobs, on net, on a regular basis.
Democrats need to be a party that projects strength not through the belligerence of our policies but through the strength of our advocacy. John Murtha showed us how to do this.
Any politician who fails to fight for a federal student loan program will be hurting themselves politically and punishing college students financially.
Though the New Orleans Saints' decisive victory left little room for Monday morning quarterbacking, the same cannot be said about the Super Bowl ads, where CBS showed just how low it can go.
Nothing can prepare you for Port-Au-Prince. Not watching the devastation on CNN for a week. Not viewing a Time magazine photo montage of blue-tinged bodies in rigor mortis. Nothing.
What does it say about the state of the industry when a film can win Best Picture without having been nominated for anything in either the primary writing or acting categories?
Can technology help us build channels that facilitate not just participation and engagement, but true empathy?
The story that everyone wants to tell is that the Democratic Party is disheartened and disintegrating. Teabagger Republicans are juiced up and on top. Or so the media says, over and over again.
It's hard for me to muster up even a whit of sympathy for the forever-beleaguered White House Press Corps. Yet they persist, in a self-made glass case of emotion, to bitch about how difficult their jobs are.
It's the US that should be concerned about the effect if the euro moves too far and too fast. The euro depreciates, the dollar strengthens, and our path to recovery starts to run more uphill.
As a member of the Harvard Class of 1968, I approached my 25th Reunion in 1993 with some misgivings over the honoring of Colin Powell. Little did I anticipate that I'd personally speak with him there.
We cannot let the trial of Tim DeChristopher stand. When he disrupted that auction last year, he did so in the fine tradition of non-violent civil disobedience that changed so many unjust laws in this country's past.
On Sunday, the New York Times wrote another story about the relationship between Goldman Sachs and AIG. Their theories are contradictory and many of the supporting "facts" don't stand up to serious scrutiny.
This year the NBA All-Star Game is going to be in my hometown, the best city in the world: Dallas. This is my fifth All-Star appearance, but this year is extra special.
John Murtha is deeply personally committed to the welfare of veterans and military families and to our wounded. History will judge him as a hero, a public servant and a Marine.
Welcome to the "open carry" movement, an effort by "gun rights" extremists to foist their interpretation of the Second Amendment on the rest of us by openly carrying handguns in public places.
Though America's cyber-vulnerability has long been a concern of the intelligence agencies, the Google episode has catapulted it to a national security priority.
Serious critiques of the internal game around Obama have to be read -- because Obama is not winning. He is failing, and people need to consider why.
We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation's greatness.
How much more of this will it take before Obama and the Democrats grasp that bipartisanship is a dead letter, a lousy tactic, and a sign of presidential weakness?
It's far past time to stop pretending that Palin is just a joke. Her performance in Nashville was taken seriously by the kind of people who dominate the Republican nominating process.
