Posts Tagged ‘White House’

U.S. Video News Update X4 for February 20, 2011

Evans Liberal Politics
February 20, 2011

 

U.S. Video News Update X4
for February 20, 2011

Watch House Votes to Defund
Health Reforms, EPA, Planned Parenthood

The Raw Story, Feb. 19, 2011 – 2:26

House Passes Sweeping Cuts
to Domestic Programs

Weekly Address: Winning
the Future at Intel

Investigations On WMD Lies
That Led To Iraq War

Computer Wins Jeopardy
Beats Humans

Microsoft Store

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U.S. Video News Update X4 for February 17, 2011

Evans Liberal Politics
February 17, 2011

 

U.S. Video News Update X4
for February 17, 2011

Obama Awards George W. Bush
Medal Of Freedom

Rep. Ryan: It’s Like Cairo
Has Moved To Madison

Obama Sides With Tea Party?!

Does Obama Watch Cable News?

Microsoft Store

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Acknowledging my Fans: My top seven cities for Wednesday, February 16 in terms of the numbers of visitors were: Beijing, China (432 visitors – who’d have thought it!); Woodstock, Illinois (324, a new entry in my top visitors, thank you!); Redmond, Washington (169 visitors – Microsoft, we love you guys, too!); Alexandria, Ohio (49 – thanks guys!); Santa Barbara, California (47 visitors, thank you to the beautiful people of California!); New York, New York (45 – let’s hear it for the Big Apple!); and Bloomington, Illinois (42 – thanks!). Get YOUR city into the game: Share Evans Liberal Politics with friends and contacts, using the icons at bottom of each post!

Weekly Address: Merry Christmas from the President & First Lady

Evans Liberal Politics
December 25, 2010

 

Weekly Address: Merry Christmas
from the President & First Lady

Video – The President’s Weekly Address: National Security Over Politics on START

Evans Liberal Politics
December 18, 2010

 

The President’s Weekly Address:
National Security Over Politics on START

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The Why-Should-I-Get-Out-Of-My-Chair Gap in 2012

Evans Liberal Politics
December 14, 2010

 

The Why-Should-I-Get-Out-Of-My-Chair Gap in 2012

The Why-Should-I-Get-Out-Of-My-Chair Gap in 2012, Robert Reich.org, December 12, 2010, by Robert Reich, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

In the 2010 midterm elections Democrats suffered from a so-called “enthusiasm gap.”

If Dems agree to the tax plan just negotiated by the White House with Republican leaders, they’ll face a “why-should-I-get-up-out-of-my-chair” gap that will make 2010’s Dem enthusiasm seem like a pep rally by comparison.

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It’s a $70,000 gift for every millionaire, financed by a gigantic hole in the federal budget that will put on the cutting board education, infrastructure, and everything else most other Americans need and want.

Some Dem apologists say the deal is a $900 billion stimulus. Not true. The rich spend a smaller share of their incomes than everyone else, so the huge benefits going their way will barely stimulate the economy. (Their savings will move around the world wherever they can get the highest return.)

And while middle and working class consumers will get a small break from payroll taxes, they’ll use most of it to help pay down their debts because they know the tax break isn’t permanent while their debt payments and penalties are growing. Again, very little stimulus.

An extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless will surely help them and the economy overall. But a new WPA to put the jobless to work would have been far better. The longer they’re out of work the harder it will be for them ever to get back in, even if and when jobs return. But apparently a new WPA wasn’t even considered.

It’s not just the Dem base that worries about the deal. Independents who believe the dice are increasingly loaded in favor of the privileged and powerful are also concerned. (Just the latest example: The New York Times today reports on a small cabal of bankers from the biggest Wall Street houses who meet regularly to maintain their lock on the lucrative multi-trillion dollar derivatives trade. The Times story could have gone further and revealed how much the big banks are spending on lobbyists to gut provisions of the financial reform act aimed at regulating derivatives trading.)

Even Tea Partiers are convinced big government, big business, and Wall Street colluding against the rest of America. Only instead of blaming the powerful and privileged, the Tea Partiers are more comfortable taking aim at America’s so-called cultural and intellectual elites.

The point is that with income and wealth more concentrated at the top than it’s been since 1928, with money flooding politics as never before (much of it secret), and with cynicism about government at a post-World War II high, Obama’s tax deal couldn’t come at a worse time.

Enthusiasts on the right want to shrink government, and the deal sets them up nicely.

Most Democrats, many Independents, and everyone else who still sees government as our last bulwark against privilege and power, are aghast by the deal. They ask: How could it have come to this? And when 2012 rolls around, why should I get out of my chair?

here. Reich’s newest book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future has been released September 21, and is available for ordering at this link (Amazon.com). The above article is from Reich’s new blog, and can be viewed here.

Robert Reich’s commentaries are available for listening to at Publicradio.com. Watch the video Aftershock: The next economy and America’s future (about his new book). Thanks to Professor Reich for permission to publish his articles on an ongoing basis.

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Video – White House: Obama Trying to Quit Smoking

Evans Liberal Politics
December 9, 2010

 

White House: Obama Trying to Quit Smoking

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Obama and Dems Struggle to Reclaim Liberals’ Enthusiasm Ahead of Elections

Evans Liberal Politics
October 6, 2010

 

Obama and Dems Struggle to Reclaim
Liberals’ Enthusiasm Ahead of Elections


Obama Strains to Get Liberals Back Into Fold Ahead of Vote, © The New York Times, October 5, 2010, by Peter Baker, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON — With four weeks until Congressional elections that will shape the remainder of his term, President Obama is increasingly focused on generating enthusiasm within the base that helped put him in the White House two years ago, from college students to African-Americans.

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But Mr. Obama has aimed much of his prodding — and not a small amount of personal pique — at the liberals most deflated by the first two years of his presidency. Assuming that many independents are out of reach, White House strategists are counting on Mr. Obama to energize, cajole, wheedle and even shame the left into matching the Tea Party momentum that has propelled Republicans this year.

As he holds rallies aimed at college students and minority groups, sends e-mail to his old list of campaign supporters and prepares to host a town hall-style meeting on MTV, the president essentially is appealing to his liberal base to put aside its disappointment in him. Without offering regrets for policy choices that have angered liberals, Mr. Obama argues that the Republican alternative is far worse.

“You can’t sit it out,” he told a conference call of college student journalists last week. “You can’t suddenly just check in once every 10 years or so, on an exciting presidential election, and then not pay attention during big midterm elections where we’ve got a real big choice between Democrats and Republicans.” He added that “the energy that you were able to bring to our politics in 2008, that’s needed not less now, it’s needed more now.”

At times, though, the message has come across as scolding and testy, in the view of some Democrats. Mr. Obama told Rolling Stone magazine that Democrats “need to buck up” because it would be “inexcusable” for them to stay home. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told a fund-raiser recently that the base should “stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives.”

The White House may be making progress closing the so-called enthusiasm gap with Republicans, according to Democratic strategists who point to improving poll numbers and fund-raising. But the fact that Mr. Obama needs to make such a concerted effort highlights the depth of disaffection among liberals over what they see as his failure to aggressively push for the change he promised.

“It’s great that President Obama is showing a fighting spirit in the weeks before an election, but what his former voters need to see is that same fighting spirit when he’s governing,” said Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group started last year to advocate for liberal goals and candidates.

David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, said the appeal to the base stemmed entirely from political reality. “It’s not frustration at all,” he said. “It’s fundamental. Almost the entire Republican margin is based on the enthusiasm gap, and if Democrats come out in the same turnout as Republicans, it’s going to be a much different election.” ….

Read the full article, here.

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"The Republican Wave Has Crested;"
Democrats Gaining in Polls


“The Republican Wave Has Crested”; 2 New Polls Show Significant 7 Point Gains for the Democrats, Daily Kos, October 6, 2010, by TomP, excerpt quoted verbatim:

We have seen it recently in California where Brown and Boxer are opening up signifcant leads, in Washington and in Connecticut. Yes, the economy is making it a tough year, but new polling shows the Democrats coming back. The tradmed, however, is so invested in their wished-for Republican wave, that the news is not getting out. WE need to spread the word:

Submitted by Simon Rosenberg on 10/5/10

More evidence this morning confirming the argument we’ve been making for the past few weeks – the Republican wave has crested, and a new dynamic in election 2010 has taken hold.

New Rasmussen and Washington Post polls each show a 7 point swing towards the Democrats in the national Congressional Generic in the past few weeks. As we wrote yesterday this movement tracks similar movement seen in other polls released over the past few days, indicating that the Democrats have made substantial improvement in their position over the past month.

2 New Polls Show Significant 7 Point Gains for the Democrats

Simon Rosenberg is President and Founder of NDN and a veteran of the 1992 Clinton War Room. More from him:

In the lead Washington Post story on their new poll, the 7 point Democratic gain was “modest,” and the 6 point Republican lead “significant.” Not sure how that got by their editor this morning but shows how fundamentally invested much of DC’s political class is in the September version of this story which had Democrats losing the House, a wave election and big Republican gains were already “baked in the cake.”

2 New Polls Show Significant 7 Point Gains for the Democrats

Even with 9.5 % unemployment, the Republicans are having trouble winning both chambers of Congress. 9.5% unemployment. Yes, it was Bush’s fault, but people often just blame whoever is in office. 100s of millions of dollars spent by Big Business and the Billionaires, and yet the Republicans still have not put it away. This was their chance and they have not and will not succeed.

It’s despair that leads people to give up. We need to be agents of hope, showing that Dems can win. Simon Rosenberg sees Dem fortunes improving through October and into the election:

Given current trends it is reasonable to conclude that the Democrats could pick up another 3-6 points in the national polls before election day, which would have a significant impact of course on the many close races across the country.

Read the full article, here

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Obama to Sidestep Senate Confirmation by Appointing Elizabeth Warren Special Adviser

Evans Liberal Politics
September 16, 2010

 

Obama to Sidestep Senate Confirmation
by Appointing Elizabeth Warren Special Adviser


A Survey of News from Around the Internet
on the Elizabeth Warren Appointment

 

Evans Liberal Politics, September 16, 2010, compiled by Paul Evans, photo of Elizabeth Warren from Wikipedia:

Sources: Obama to name adviser for new consumer agency, CNN Politics, September 15, 2010, by Dana Bash, Ed Henry and Jessica Yellin, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Washington (CNN) — President Obama plans to name Elizabeth Warren as a special adviser to help set up a new consumer protection agency created under the Wall Street reform bill, according to sources who spoke on condition of not being identified by name.

photo of Elizabeth Warren, new special adviser to the President and Treasury Department from Wikipedia

A Democratic official said Wednesday that Warren’s title would be assistant to the president and special adviser to the secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In her role, Warren would report directly to Obama and to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner while leading the administration’s work in starting up the new bureau, the official said.

Elizabeth Warren to be Named to Advisory Position This Week


In addition, a senior administration official said Obama will name Warren to the advisory position this week.

The move would allow Warren to help set up the new consumer protection agency but bypass a potentially difficult Senate confirmation battle if she were nominated to formally run the agency.

At his news conference last week, Obama said the Senate confirmation process has been bogged down by Republican partisanship. Obama said then he had several conversations with Warren, a Harvard University professor who has long been considered the leading candidate for the job, but he stopped short of officially nominating her.

Warren, 61, was favored by liberal Democrats to run the new agency charged with protecting consumers from abusive mortgage and credit card practices. However, her nomination was considered likely to draw opposition in the Senate over concerns about her liberal leanings and lack of government experience.

It was unclear how much authority Warren would have in the advisory role.

The Democratic official said that appointing Warren as an advisor would allow her to get involved immediately in setting up the agency. If nominated to be the new agency’s director, she would be unable to play a decision-making role until confirmed, the official noted.

Obama can still nominate a director of the new bureau, and Warren will participate in the selection process, the official added.

A spokesperson for Moveon.org, the liberal political advocacy group, said the title of Warren’s job wouldn’t matter if she had the necessary clout.

“As long as Professor Warren has real power, real authority and real support to hold the big banks accountable and stand up for American families, then our members — and Americans everywhere — will welcome this news,” said Ilyse Hogue, the group’s director of political advocacy and communications.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which led a campaign to get Warren named the director of the new agency, said in a statement it hoped the appointment would provide Warren with the power she needed to do the job right.

“If Elizabeth Warren is given full power to run the new consumer protection bureau and hold Wall Street accountable, it will mean real change — and voters will know that going into November’s election,” the group’s statement said. “If this appointment is window dressing and Tim Geithner controls the show, it would be a big disappointment and a victory for Wall Street.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who sits with the Democratic caucus, praised the move by Obama as a necessary step to get the new agency running. ….

Read the full article, here.

Elizabeth Warren Named Special Adviser


More News From Around the Web
on the Elizabeth Warren Appointment


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Elizabeth Warren Named Special Advisor, Daily Kos, September 15, 2010, by RhodaA.

She’s an outspoken advocate for families, described as having “a seemingly visceral loathing of financial services companies.” Her husband, Bruce Mann, describes her as “a grandmother who can make grown men cry.” Her brother, David Herring, said, “She was tougher than a snake, partner.”

“I’m writing to let you know that Professor Jerry Frug will be teaching your Contracts class this term instead of Professor Elizabeth Warren.” Martha Minow, Dean Harvard Law School

Ever since the Washington Post published the story on September 2nd that Warren had abruptly dropped her Contracts Law class at Harvard Law School, rumors abounded that she had been chosen to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It was also known that she had met last month with Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod to talk about the post, and again, on September 7th, with President Obama. Now, after conflicting reports of an interim appointment, Obama has made his choice.

White House Taps Warren To Set Up Consumer Financial Protection Bureau


White House Taps Warren To Set Up Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, The Huffington Post, September 15, 2010, by Shahien Nasiripour:

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“Anyone who knows her knows that she would only take a position that had real meat to it,” said one source who had worked closely with Warren in the past. “I mean, seriously, you’ve seen her in action. Do you really think she’s going to be anyone’s lapdog? She bites hard.”

The nascent consumer unit being formed inside Treasury already has more than 35 employees, said Steven Adamske, Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. The number will swell in the coming months as the agency is developed. It will soon move out of the Treasury building near the White House and into a building leased by Treasury for its Office of Financial Stability just a few short blocks away, Adamske said.

Yet while speculation centered on whether Obama would nominate the outspoken and respected academic and advocate, HuffPost reported July 19 that Warren could head the agency without Senate confirmation. Lenders — but notably their friends in the Senate — began to publicly question whether Warren possessed the aptitude or management skill to run a large bureaucracy. The new consumer regulator will eventually house hundreds of employees and have a budget approaching $500 million.

Yet those questions took a backseat to her confirmability. Dodd began telling reporters that he had serious reservations over whether Warren, viewed as a polarizing figure given her aggressive advocacy on behalf of the middle class, would survive a Senate confirmation battle.

Dodd, whose name forms one half of the financial re-regulation bill that Obama recently signed into law, may have been concerned about a deliberate attempt to delay the agency’s formation, which could have occurred had Obama named Warren and Senators began to delay her confirmation, or vote her down.

As part of a gentleman’s agreement between the White House and the Senate, presidential nominees typically do not work in their nominated roles until they are confirmed. Had Obama formally nominated Warren, she wouldn’t have begun forming the agency until that time.

However, a HuffPost review found that Dodd had never before questioned a presidential nominee’s management experience — even when those nominees lacked it. Over the past several years, Dodd, a longtime member of the banking committee, declined to critically question nominees to financial regulatory agencies. He even skipped a few confirmation hearings altogether.

Warren, though, slowly began to pick up endorsements. Democrats in the House and Senate sent letters to Obama urging her nomination. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Democrat from Warren’s adopted home state of Massachusetts and the other half of the financial bill, said that Obama should simply give her a recess appointment, bypassing the Senate completely.

Republicans, too, began to endorse her. A former top official in the Reagan administration said a vote for Warren was akin to a vote for capitalism and free markets.

Yet still the administration declined to name her to the post. Speculation centered on a divide within the White House — longtime Obama advisers David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett were for her, while Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and top economic adviser Larry Summers were against her. Geithner favored one of his top aides, Michael Barr, an assistant secretary at Treasury who helped shepherd the financial reform bill through Congress.

Axelrod, though, hinted today’s Warren news back in July, noting that “one thing I know for certain is however we move forward she’s going to be a strong voice in helping shape this and make it the most effective voice for consumers that it possibly can be.”

Lenders, already wary of the reforms to be implemented by Dodd-Frank, may react to a Warren appointment by being overly cautious in the credit products they offer consumers — like mortgages, credit cards and personal loans — and thus freeze up lending. Despite the fact that the nation is in the midst of a collective process of cleaning up its balance sheet — paying off debt, building up nest eggs for future expansion and purchases — the additional drying up of credit would significantly hurt the economy.

Those concerns may still exist. But for the time being, Warren’s backers won the fight within the administration. And giving her a seat at the table when it comes to economic matters is particularly significant, given that the key economic policy positions within the administration are mostly occupied by alums of the Hamilton Project — an initiative partly founded by former Goldman Sachs head and Citigroup chairman Robert Rubin. The former Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Rubin has mentored Summers and Geithner, and his disciples populate the White House and Treasury. The Project — and its alums — aren’t noted for their progressive economic policy positions, or their advocacy on behalf of everyday families.

Warren, however, is associated with the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive organization dedicated to advancing New Deal-like reforms that’s part of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in New York. Her inclusion in internal White House debates could help shape eventual policy proposals.

White House economic policy proposals to jumpstart the stalling recovery — and bring down the 9.6 percent unemployment rate — have thus far received tepid support from leading economists and market commentators.

Warren’s path to the helm of the agency began on March 10, 2009, as she joined Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) and Brad Miller (D-N.C.) in the Capitol Visitors Center to announce a bill to create what was then being called the Financial Product Safety Commission. Warren, at the microphone, laid out how the financial crisis could have been prevented had an effective FPSC been in place.

Elizabeth Warren, likely to head new consumer agency, provokes strong feelings, The Washington Post, August 13, 2010, by Brady Dennis.

Somewhere along the line, Elizabeth Warren became a symbol.

She’s either the plain-spoken, supremely smart crusader for middle-class families that her supporters adore, or she’s the power-hungry headline seeker her critics loathe, a fiery zealot disguised in professorial glasses and pastel cardigans.

…SNIP….

She was the child of a cash-strapped family on the Oklahoma plains, a teenage wife and young mother who became the only member of her immediate family to graduate from college, then went on to teach at Harvard Law School. Drawn to the field of bankruptcy, she initially took a jaundiced view of the irresponsible spendthrifts she believed were gaming the system, only to discover during her research a humanity in their stories that altered her life’s work. She has long maintained the bearing of a straight-shooting, “aw shucks” Washington outsider, even though she began showing her Beltway savvy as a political infighter more than a decade ago.

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Will Obama Give Elizabeth Warren the Power She Needs?


See Warren to Unofficially Lead Consumer Agency, The New York Times, September 15, 2010, by Sewell Chan.

For a negative view of the appointment see Triumph of the Money Party!!! Warren’s role downgraded, reports to Geithner, OpEdNews, September 16, 2010, by Michael Collins.

Also fairly negative is Obama Prepares to Sort of Appoint Elizabeth Warren to Something, Common Dreams.org, September 16, 2010, by John Nichols of The Nation.

Recommended: See Will Warren Have Power?, Daily Kos, September 15, 2010, by Stephanie Taylor.

See Republican Nightmare: Putting Elizabeth Warren to Work Now, September 10, 2010, by Simon Johnson: this is the earliest news I’ve found strongly hinting that Obama would move in this direction:

President Obama is finally looking for bold, creative, and clever ways to change the way the US economy operates – preferably with measures that will take effect by the November midterms and change the tone of the broader political debate. His tax proposals this week have some symbolic value, but in the broader sense all of these fiscal suggestions are tinkering at the margins.

What could he possibly do that would grab people’s attention, mobilize his political base, and put his opponents on the defensive? There is an easy answer: Appoint Elizabeth Warren to start running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) immediately.

See Thank you Mr. President for appointing Elizabeth Warren, City Data Forum, ongoing.

See America Still Needs Elizabeth Warren, And The Bank Lobby Is Still Lying About Her, Campaign for America’s Future on Evans Liberal Politics, August 9, 2010, by Zach Carter.

See Exclusive: President Obama to This Week Name Elizabeth Warren to Special Advisory Role to White House/Treasury Dept to Form New Consumer Agency, ABC News Political Punch, September 15, 2010, by Jake Tapper.

At his press conference Friday, President Obama noted that “the idea for this agency was Elizabeth Warren’s,” a reference to an essay she wrote in 2007 in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas in which she proposed a “Financial Product Safety Commission.”

The president went on to call Warren “a dear friend of mine. She’s somebody I’ve known since I was in law school. And I have been in conversations with her. She is a tremendous advocate for this idea. It’s only been a couple of months, and this is a big task standing up this entire agency, so I’ll have an announcement soon about how we’re going to move forward.”

Naming Warren as an assistant or counselor to both the president and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would allow the president to bypass a Senate confirmation process that could prove lengthy and contentious.

“I’m concerned about all Senate confirmations these days” including if he were to “nominate somebody for dog catcher,” the president said Friday when asked if he was concerned about Warren’s ability to be confirmed. “I’ve got people who have been waiting for six months to get confirmed who nobody has an official objection to and who were voted out of committee unanimously, and I can’t get a vote on them.”

Since nominees facing the confirmation process also enter a period of public silence, avoiding the confirmation process would also allow Warren to publicly discuss the agency and its benefits, which the president is eager for her to do.

Recommended: Exclusive: Elizabeth Warren in her own words, Salon, September 15, 2010, by Lynn Paramore, excerpt quoted verbatim:

What are some of the values that were instilled in your childhood that you would like to see emphasized now?

I guess it is a fundamental belief that people are doing the best they can. It is easy when you are successful to think that you did it all by yourself and to forget that you didn’t. You got here because a lot of things broke your way. You were lucky enough to be born into a family that could afford to take care of you well. You were lucky enough to be able to have a family that could pay for you to go to school or buy your way out of scrapes. And to people who have had a lot of luck and don’t acknowledge that — the world looks like a total meritocracy, right? I’m on top because I really won, because I am better than everyone else.

I think I grew up with a profound sense of watching people who were good people, who were smart people, who were hardworking people — God, nobody on this Earth worked harder than my mom and dad — and they had very little. But they made do with what they had. They had their family, they raised four kids who loved them and four kids who all had our own families that we loved. And so, I guess the only way I can say it is that the value is in knowing that the game doesn’t always come out fairly. There is a lot more going on. The material success at the end of the day is only a small part of it. Truly successful lives are about family.

Read the Wikipedia article on Elizabeth Warren.

Highly Recommended: Watch Conversations with History: Elizabeth Warren — “Law, Politics and the Coming Collapse of the Middle Class,” Presented by the Institute of International Studies, Univ. of California at Berkeley, January 10, 2008, 59:11

Note by Paul Evans: It was Elizabeth Warren who first proposed the Consumer Protection Agency in the first place, in an article titled Unsafe at Any Rate, in the summer of 2007.

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