Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–Petraeus’s words prove prescient.
–House and Senate conferees are trying to wrap up their negotiations on financial reform today. You can watch on C-SPAN 3.
–They’ve saved the best (read: most difficult) for last.
–Blanche Lincoln is still defending her derivatives language, …
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–Obama departs on a whirlwind tour of the Gulf Coast today with stops in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida before delivering his first Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday night. Reportedly included in the speech: a case for comprehensive energy and climate legislation, including some …
YURI GRIPAS / AFP / Getty Images
–With the scale of the crisis still coming into focus, Obama has summoned BP bigwigs for a meeting.
–Barney Frank says the so-called “Volcker Rule” that would restrict proprietary trading at big banks will definitely be included in final financial reform legislation and that Democrats are …
People are unhappy. They’ve been unhappy for a while: through Enron and the .com bubble bursting, 9/11, two wars, Katrina. They thought Barack Obama would bring change but few have felt the changes he’s wrought: who can imagine how bad the economy could have gotten sans stimulus? It feels bad enough as it is. Then came the Gulf oil …
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–It’s Super Duper Primary Tuesday with contests in 12 states coast to coast including run-offs in Arkansas and Georgia.
– A Washington Post/ABC News poll finds only 29% of Americans plan to support their representative in November. Maybe that’s why turnout is expected to be low today …
What happens when you’re a small government, pro-business conservative and your state gets pummeled by one of the worst man made disasters ever – not five years after getting pummeled by one of the worst natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina)? If you’re Louisiana Senator David Vitter, you double down on offshore drilling and push …
Sure, he’s a loooooooong way from, um, winning — or even being in a position to win. But he’s had a good month and his poll numbers are finally going slightly north. On the other hand, they could’ve hardly gotten worse. A webstory today from me.
The Senate tonight passed a sweeping overhaul of the rules that govern Wall Street with the aim of better protecting Main Street if the markets were ever to meltdown again. The legislation would greatly empower the Federal Reserve Bank to monitor and oversee financial flows in order to predict and prevent a massive pooling of risk – …
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–It’s primary day in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Contests between Lincoln and Halter, Paul and Grayson, and Specter and Sestak, as well as a special election between Critz and Burns in PA-12 are widely seen as yardsticks by which to measure this cycle’s anti-establishment …
For more than a week, I’ve been wondering why Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and that committee’s top Republican Ricahrd Shelby haven’t introduced their managers’ amendment, the final piece that will allow financial regulatory reform to pass the Senate. The bill was scheduled to be finished, after all, at the end of …
The first draft of history is always going to be controversial, especially when it’s on something as touchy as health care reform – monstrous legislation the full effects of which we will not know for years to come. So it should probably come as no surprise that Jonathan Alter’s take on Barack Obama’s first year in the White …
Dems are still moving ahead with the legislation but here’s a story from me about why the GOP is unlikely to play this year. There’s actually more risk in the Democratic strategy than I’d previously seen: a lot of folks on both sides are concerned that the draft legislation thus far was released — the compromise that was being …
Workers gather oil-soaked algae near Gulfport, Mississippi. (Ben Gruber/Reuters)
–No surprises in Indiana GOP Senate candidate Dan Coats’ or Ohio Dem Senate contender Lee Fisher’s primary victories last night; Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham head to a runoff in North Carolina’s Democratic Senate contest.
–Chris Dodd and …
