Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance Undermines Free and Fair Elections and Democracy

National Press Release

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine Says Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance Undermines Free and Fair Elections and Democracy - Must Not be Allowed to Stan

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tim Kaine released the following statement after the Supreme Court's decision on the Citizens United campaign finance case today:


"The Supreme Court's ruling today will allow the money of corporate interests to flood the political process, will undermine free and fair elections and further erode voters' confidence in our system of Democracy.  It is a major victory for oil companies, banks, health insurance companies and other special interests that already use their power over Washington to drown out the voices of regular Americans.
"As we said in our amicus brief on this case, restrictions on corporate influence over elections are necessary if we are to have a system that allows actual voters and candidates to be heard and if we are to encourage the record number of small donors who participated in the 2008 election to remain involved.  This ruling changes the rules just as more small donors are beginning to play a greater role in the political process.
"Voters are angry and anxious because they believe the system is tilted against them and instead is designed to benefit the special interests.  The concerns of voters are well founded -- as we have seen over and over again how armies of corporate lobbyists descend on Capitol Hill to fight everything from health care and financial regulatory reform to efforts to lower energy costs and reverse the effects of global climate change. This ruling undermines the free speech rights of citizens whose views will be drowned out by wealthy corporate interests whose aim will not just be to influence which candidates get elected -- but how they vote once they are in office.
"Not surprisingly, Republicans have hailed this decision -- the same Republicans who have stood with corporate America year after year to block any measure that would benefit Middle Class Americans at the expense of the corporate bottom line.  Republicans are tone deaf if they believe that the anger and disgust that voters have right now towards our political system is not borne in large part out of their rightful belief that the corporate special interests have too much sway over elected officials and public policy.  On this, Republicans are again taking the side of the special interests over the people's interests.
"President Obama has said that his Administration will immediately work with Congress to develop a forceful response to this decision which, in the public interest, simply must not be allowed to stand."
SOURCE Democratic National Committee

Brown Scores Upset Victory Over Coakley in Massachusetts Senate Race

I have to give the opposition, a voice.  This is Fox News fair and balanced.  Please check out

Updated January 19, 2010

RAW DATA: Martha Coakley Biography

FOXNews.com

Democrat Martha Coakley, Massachusetts' Attorney General, is vying to win over the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in Tuesday's special election. 


Martha Coakley (D)
AGE: 56; born July 14, 1953.
EDUCATION: B.A. from Williams College, 1975, J.D. degree from Boston University Law School, 1979
CAREER: attorney, Parker, Coulter, Daley & White, 1979-1980; attorney, Goodwin Proctor LLP, 1980-1986; assistant district attorney, Middlesex District Attorney's office 1986-1987 and 1989-1997. special attorney, Boston Organized Crime Strike Force, 1987-1989; Middlesex District Attorney, 1999-2007; president, Massachusetts District Attorney's Association, 2001; Attorney General of Massachusetts, 2007-present; served as president of Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts, and on board of directors of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
FAMILY: Lives in Medford with her husband, Thomas F. O'Connor, Jr.
Martha Mary Coakley grew up in North Adams, a mill town in the Berkshires, the third of five children in a middle-class Roman Catholic family. A star debater in high school, she was among the first women admitted to Williams College, a few miles from her hometown.
Coakley graduated cum laude, from Williams College, in 1975. In 1979, she received her law degree from Boston University. Coakley began her career in civil litigation at two Boston law firms before joining the Middlesex District Attorney's office in 1986.
After working for the U.S. Justice Department in its Boston Organized Crime Strike Force, she returned to the DA's office and became head of its child abuse prosecution unit in 1991.
In late 1997 Coakley made a timely return to the district attorney's office after an unsuccessful run for the state Legislature earlier in the year -- Coakley finished fourth in a field of six.
In 1998, she was elected district attorney in Middlesex County.
The race to fill Kennedy's seat is the culmination of a decade's long quest for Coakley, 56, who grabbed the public's attention with the high-profile prosecution of Louise Woodward, a British nanny charged with shaking to death a Newton couple's infant son in 1997.
Coakley's polished appearances on national television during the trial brought her fans and broad name recognition.
She made her first statewide run in 2006 and became the first woman elected attorney general.
Perhaps Coakley's biggest case as attorney general was her handling of a fatal 2006 tunnel ceiling collapse in the newly opened Big Dig.
The incident gave a focal point to public outrage over the massive project's delays and soaring costs, but instead of pursuing jail terms, Coakley reached a settlement with the project's top contractor. Coakley blamed weak state liability laws, noting she won nearly $500 million.
In the December 2009 special Senate primary, Coakley had more votes than her two closest competitors combined in the four-candidate field.
Coakley married in her late 40s; she and her husband, Thomas O'Connor, a retired deputy police superintendent, have two dogs and no children.

Updated January 19, 2010

RAW DATA: Scott Brown Biography

FOXNews.com

Republican Scott Brown, a Massachusetts state senator, is hoping for victory in Tuesday's pivotal race to fill the Senate seat held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. 

Scott Brown (R)
AGE: 50; born Sept. 12, 1959
EDUCATION: B.A. from Tufts University, 1981, J.D. from Boston College Law School, 1985
CAREER: Wrentham selectman, 1995-1998; State Rep. 1999-2004; State Senate 2004-present. Serves on Joint Committee on Consumer Protection & Professional Licensure; Joint Committee on Education; Joint Committee on Election Laws; Joint Committee on Higher Education; Joint Committee on Public Safety; and Homeland Security Joint Committee on Veterans & Federal Affairs. Massachusetts Army National Guard, 1979-present, currently holds rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
FAMILY: Lives in Wrentham with his wife, Gail Huff. The couple has two daughters in college, Ayla and Arianna.
Brown grew up in Wakefield, Mass., and had a tough childhood. His parents divorced when he was a baby, and each remarried three times. He spent his youth living with various relatives and getting into trouble, the New York Times reported.
Brown reportedly said that he was caught for stealing records as a 12-year-old, and that an encounter with a judge helped send him on the right path.
Brown was a basketball player in high school and went on to Tufts University. As an undergraduate he joined the Massachusetts National Guard (where he still serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps), all while reportedly singing and acting in campus productions and picking up modeling work.
In 1982, Brown, as a 22-year-old law student, was named ''America's Sexiest Man'' by Cosmopolitan magazine. The title netted him $1,000 and a photo shoot, including one picture in which Mr. Brown was covered only by his strategically placed arm. Brown said the money helped him pay for law school, according to the New York Times.
In August 1983, he completed airborne training at Fort Bragg, N.C., National Guard records show. Brown returned to Boston College that fall and received his law degree in 1985.
Brown's political career started in 1992 when he was elected assessor in Wrentham, the Massachusetts town where he and his family live. Three years later, he served as a selectman, and was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1998. In March 2004 he was elected tothe State Senate in a special election to fill the seat of Cheryl Jacques.

During six terms in the Legislature, three each in the House and Senate, Brown has a modest record of legislative initiatives, but he has carved out a niche as a leading advocate for veterans, colleagues on both sides of the aisle said.

As a legislator, he has served on the Veterans and Federal Affairs Committee, the Hidden Wounds of War Commission, and the Governor's Task Force on Returning Veterans. He lists among his achievements his authorship of a 2007 law that created a check-off box on state income tax forms for veterans to indicate whether they served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The state uses the information to notify veterans of available services and benefits, including the "Welcome Home Bonus" that provides $1,000 for those returning from active duty in Afghanistan or Iraq.
He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 2006. Despite his long career, Brown, as a judge advocate, has never been in a unit sent to a combat zone such as Iraq or Afghanistan.
Brown did brief assignments in Paraguay in 2005 and in Kazakhstan in 2007. In Paraguay, he was part of an effort with US diplomats to raise awareness of American principles of justice, including cases involving military personnel, according to the Boston Globe. In Kazakhstan, he said he spent a week on a disaster, terrorism, and emergency preparedness exercise with military and civilian personnel from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and three former Soviet republics, the newspaper reported.
Brown was the landslide winner of the December 2009 Republican contest, with 89 percent of the vote; Jack E. Robinson, a businessman, garnered 11 percent.

Poll: American public fed up with Washington

Mind you We are pissed off at Congress, Federal Government,  Wall Street, we are not blaming Obama, but He needs to reorder his priorities, Economy and Jobs. Health Care would be great, but at this time the Congress is SLEEPING ON IT.....SHHHHHHHHHHHHH  they are tired..........
GET OFF YOUR LAZY  A_ _ _ _, and look like your doing your jobs.
The Government is 'stagnant' 'lazy' 'boring' 'predictable' It needs to spiced up just a little.

Poll: Public fed up with Washington

70% say government isn't working well; Obama approval back at 50%

 

By Mark Murray

Deputy political director

NBC News

updated 6:32 p.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 26, 2010

WASHINGTON - As President Barack Obama prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address Wednesday night, he will be speaking to an American public that’s fed up with Congress, the country’s two main political parties, and the federal government, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Only 28 percent believe the federal government is “working well” or even works “okay,” versus seven in 10 who think it’s “unhealthy,” “stagnant” or needs large reforms.

By comparison, in December of 2000 — during the height of the disputed Bush-Gore presidential election — 55 percent said the government was working well or okay.

What’s more, a whopping 93 percent believe there’s too much partisan infighting; 84 percent think the special interests have too much influence over legislation; nearly three-quarters say that not enough has been done to regulate Wall Street and the banking industry; and an equal 61 percent complain that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress aren’t willing to compromise.

And the percentage who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction now stands at 58 percent, the highest level of Obama’s presidency.

“The message is a big one,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. “The message is, ‘We hate what’s going in Washington.’”

Public’s anger isn’t directed at Obama
Indeed, the NBC/Journal survey finds that nearly half of the country (48 percent) said last week’s stunning election in Massachusetts, in which Republican candidate Scott Brown won a Senate contest in one of the nation’s most Democratic-leaning states, was aimed at sending a message to Washington. Only 15 percent disagreed.

But if the public is fed up with Washington, its anger isn’t necessarily directed at President Obama.

Only 27 percent say they blame him for not being able to find solutions to the country’s problems. By contrast, 48 percent blame Republicans in Congress and 41 percent blame congressional Democrats.

“The president has problems,” Hart adds, “but the Congress has much bigger problems.”

Obama’s numbers, in fact, are virtually unchanged from last week’s poll, which was released on the day of the Massachusetts election.

The president’s approval rating inched up two points to 50 percent, while the number believing his health care plan is a good idea declined two points to 31 percent.

“This data set reminds us that the Scott Brown election has been a huge event in Washington, D.C.,” said McInturff, the Republican pollster. “But around the country, I think this polling would suggest that it had a modest effect.”

Focus more on the economy, less on health care
However, the poll also suggests the public wants Obama to refocus his priorities: 44 percent say he has given too much attention to health care, 16 percent say he’s given it too little attention and 38 percent say he’s given it the right amount.

On the other hand, 51 percent maintain he’s given the economy too little attention, compared with only 5 percent who say he’s given it too much attention and 42 percent who say he’s given it the right amount of attention.

Still, a majority of Americans continue to have high hopes for Obama. A combined 54 percent either say that he’s facing a short-term setback from which he’ll rebound or that he’s not facing a setback at all.

That’s compared with 42 percent who say he’s facing a long-term setback from which he’ll unlikely recover.

GOP’s enthusiasm edge
Looking ahead to this year’s midterm elections, 44 percent of registered voters say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, versus 42 percent who want a GOP-controlled one. Last week’s survey showed a 41-41 percent tie on this question.

But Republicans continue to enjoy a significant enthusiasm advantage. Voters who are most interested in November’s midterms prefer a Republican-controlled Congress by a 49-41 percent margin.

Yet the poll also provides evidence that Obama might be more of an asset than a liability in November. Thirty-seven percent say their vote will be a signal of support for the president, while 27 percent say it will be a signal of opposition; 35 percent said it won’t signal anything about Obama.

The poll was conducted of 800 adults from Jan. 23-25, and it has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points.

Mark Murray covers politics for NBC News.

© 2010 msnbc.com  Reprints

Democrats Slam Brakes on Health Care Overhau

I do not know what to believe anymore, I do not understand why all of a sudden the Dems are talking slow down, wait we have time. No we do not Not us ordinary citizens who do not have health coverage or for those who have coverage and do not get coverage for their ailments.  I am so tired of the Dems they are suppose to back up the President and they have just lied down and let the republications walk all over them. And as for the Republications, I hope that their party dies when the so called tea beggars are all elected and they bomb worse than the ones right now in office. The tea beggars are a bunch of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.  They do not believe the President is really the President, they do want health care, no more spending, except for their pork barrell projects, and now that the Corporations have a say so in our Elections we do not have a Democracy. Mark my words. The Republican Party will cease to exist as it is,  if they get ther way, the political environment will change drastically.  And for those Congress persobs who did not know that Corporations have forgien Corporations among them, we know have the possibility of other governments having a say so in our Government.  OMG what has the Supreme Court done,,, they have basically taken away our civil and federal rights as Citizens of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Our forefathers are turning in their graves, this is what thry fought for, OUR FREEDOM, and now ..........

January 27, 2010

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — With no clear path forward on major health care legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top domestic priority on Tuesday, saying that they no longer felt pressure to move quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing them.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, deflected questions about health care. “We’re not on health care now,” he said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.” He added, “There is no rush,” and noted that Congress still had most of this year to work on the health bills passed in 2009 by the Senate and the House.
Mr. Reid said that he and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, were working to map out a way to complete a health care overhaul in coming months. “There are a number of options being discussed,” Mr. Reid said, emphasizing “procedural aspects” of the issue.
At the same time, two centrist Democratic senators who are up for re-election this year, Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Bayh of Indiana, said that they would resist efforts to muscle through a health care bill using a parliamentary tactic called budget reconciliation, which seemed to be the simplest way to advance the measure.
The White House has said in recent days that it would support that approach.
Some Democrats said that they did not expect any action on health care legislation until late February at earliest, perhaps after Congress returns from a weeklong recess. But the Democrats stand to lose momentum, and every day closer to the November election that the issue remains unresolved may reduce the chances of passing a far-reaching bill.
The gear-shift by Democrats underscored how the health care effort had been derailed by the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election last week, which effectively denied Democrats the 60th vote they need to be sure of overcoming a Republican filibuster in the Senate. Originally, Mr. Reid wanted to finish a bill early last August.
The comments by lawmakers also served to lower expectations for the president’s State of the Union speech on Wednesday. Lawmakers said they did not expect Mr. Obama to lay out a specific strategy.
“I would be surprised if he says specifically exactly how he hopes to get health care done,” the House majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said.
None of the options available to lawmakers, including the use of budget reconciliation, seems viable at the moment. Some lawmakers said they expected Congress to try to adopt a greatly pared down bill once it returns to the issue.
“Frankly, we’re trying to figure out what is possible,” Mr. Hoyer said. “Senator Reid needs to determine what is possible on his side of the aisle, you know, what kind of support he can get. And we’re trying to figure out as well what we can pass.”
Speaker Pelosi has said that House Democrats would not simply vote to approve the version of the health care bill adopted by the Senate on Dec. 24 and send it directly to Mr. Obama for his signature. But a plan to win over House members by adopting changes to the Senate bill through the budget reconciliation process, which is not vulnerable to filibuster, ran into substantial resistance on Tuesday.
Mrs. Lincoln, who faces one of the toughest re-election bids among Democrats, said, “I am opposed to and will fight against any attempts to push through changes to the Senate health insurance reform legislation by using budget reconciliation tactics that would allow the Senate to pass a package of changes to our original bill with 51 votes.”
Mr. Bayh said, “It would destroy the opportunity, if there is one, for any bipartisan cooperation the rest of this year on anything else.”
And even if Democrats could agree on using reconciliation to adjust the health care bill, the House and Senate have yet to resolve what the adjustments would be. Major policy differences remain between the House and Senate measures, including a dispute over a proposed tax on high-cost insurance policies, and provisions related to insurance coverage of abortions.
Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said he favored a two-step process, under which the House would pass the Senate bill and Congress would then revise it using the fast-track budget procedures. Republicans adamantly oppose that approach.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, urged caution. “The White House and Democratic leaders should reach out one more time to Republicans to see if they can find a common ground,” Mr. Lieberman said.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said Democratic leaders were assessing their options on health care.
“It’s a timeout,” Mrs. Feinstein said. “The leadership is re-evaluating. They asked us to keep our powder dry.” Mrs. Feinstein said Congressional leaders should simplify the gigantic health care bill and try to pass parts of it that would be understandable to the public. But she also acknowledged that the odds were long for a far-reaching measure.
“I think big, comprehensive bills are very difficult to do in this environment,” she said.
The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said White House comments on health care suggested that President Obama was not listening to the American people.
In Elyria, Ohio, on Friday, Mr. Obama said he was not going to “walk away” from the fight for major health legislation. If the bill becomes law, White House officials said, Americans will see its benefits and will embrace it.
But Mr. McConnell said, “This a clear sign that the administration has not gotten the message, that it’s become too attached to its own pet goals, that it’s stuck in neutral when the American people are asking it to change direction.”
The Republican leader said Mr. Obama should “put the 2,700-page Democrat health care plan on the shelf” and “move toward the kind of step-by-step approach Americans really want.” Republicans, however, have not come forward with any new proposals, and Mr. McConnell has said he hopes the health care bill is now dead.

Geithner Must Go--and the Future of the Fed

Comment

By William Greider

January 23, 2010

The first casualty of the president's political debacle will likely be Timothy Geithner, the severely over-confident treasury secretary well known as a lapdog of Wall Street. Geithner was effectively repudiated by the president last week when Barack Obama abruptly announced a new, more aggressive approach to financial reform. But the immediate threat to Geithner is the scandal of collusion and possibly illegal behavior gathering around the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for its megabillion-dollar takeover of insurance giant AIG.

Tim Geithner is standing in the middle of the muck because he was still president of the New York Fed in the fall of 2008 when it rescued AIG with tons of public money (now totaling $180 billion). The facts of the deal are catching up with him now and none are good, since they raise doubts about his competence and his public integrity. This scandal has smoldered for several weeks in newspaper business sections, but is about to grab front-page attention. The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Edolphus Towns, has turned up damning evidence and called Geithner to testify the week of January 27. Committee investigators are poring through some 250,000 e-mails and subpoenaed documents and finding smoking revelations. House Republicans smell blood. House Democrats, given the present climate of popular discontent, are unlikely to rally around tainted goods.
Perhaps the most explosive revelation is that Geithner's subordinates at the New York Fed instructed AIG executives to evade securities law and conceal from the public the $62 billion the insurance company paid out on contracts with the largest investment houses and banks. AIG was already bankrupt and 80 percent owned by the government, kept afloat solely with the billions being injected by the central bank. Yet the Fed told the company to pay off the bankers at full value--100 percent on the dollar--without negotiating a better deal for the public. The bankers would not have collected a dime if the government hadn't come to the rescue.
The Fed, in other words, gave the largest, most prestigious banks a very sweet deal--much sweeter than anything the banks or the federal government will offer to homeowners facing mortgage foreclosure. The central bank, in effect, was operating a backdoor bank bailout that nobody could see. The public billions devoted to AIG went in one door at the insurance company and came out another door to the private banks. Goldman Sachs alone collected $13 billion.
Failure to disclose is a big no-no in corporate finance. People can go to jail if they willfully withhold material information from shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or they may be sued for investor fraud. Yet that is what the New York Fed told AIG to do. The company officers wanted to report fully to the SEC. Their Fed overseers told them to take out the disclosure out of their report to the SEC (the facts were ultimately not disclosed until five months later). The Fed, remember, is the government's principal banking regulator. It is supposed to enforce the laws, not tell regulated firms to break them.
What was the Fed anxious to hide? Clearly, it was the clandestine and illegitimate conduit it had devised at AIG to funnel billions to the banks, unseen by the public. Keeping this bailout secret would avoid arousing even greater anger about the bailouts. It might also help prop up stock prices at endangered banks, though savvy financial players swiftly figured out what was going on. Only the people needed to be kept in the dark, along with their elected representatives in Congress.
The Federal Reserve was trying to cover its own butt. And Timothy Geithner's. Disclosing precisely what Geithner had done to arrange backdoor bailouts on the New York end would have definitely damaged his chance of becoming Obama's treasury secretary. When the facts were eventually acknowledged, members of Congress repeatedly demanded to know which firms got the Fed's money. The Federal Reserve Chairman and his top deputies said it would be "inappropriate" to say.
Somebody seems to be lying in this matter. When the Fed's irregular action to block AIG's full disclosure was first reported, Treasury officials said Geithner was not involved because he had "recused" himself from the AIG dealings. Yet, according to the latest revelations reported by the New York Times, the general counsel of the New York Fed, Thomas Baxter, has told House investigators that Geithner verbally approved AIG's generous payouts to the banks.
So which is it? Was Geithner involved or wasn't he? It seems highly improbable Geithner could have managed to remain ignorant of this very controversial decision not to disclose. In fact, it would have been derelict for him not to have known. Committee members will want to probe the question further--what did Tim Geithner know and when did he know it? Let's hope he is under oath. Martha Stewart, remember, went to prison not for trading stocks on insider information but because she lied to federal investigators.
The treasury secretary's precarious situation may well spill over to damage the fate of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, seeking Senate confirmation for a second term. Until now, the Board of Governors in Washington has claimed to be aloof from the AIG mess at the New York Fed. This may also be untrue, according to the latest revelations. Some of the Fed governors in Washington, it turns out, were quite upset by the deals being made by Geithner's staff at the New York Fed. Lying is easier when a government agency is given privileged secrecy.
"What does any of this buy us?" some governors asked, according to one newly disclosed e-mail message. Good question. For that matter, what did the public get for its $180 billion? Senators might want an answer before they vote to give Bernanke another four years. Bernanke's distress was revealed last week when he suddenly announced that he wants a GAO audit of the entire AIG deal-making. That was jarring because Bernanke has repeatedly claimed the Congressional demands for a GAO audit of the Federal Reserve would destroy this sanctified institution.
The smell of scandal poses a more fundamental question about the future of the Federal Reserve. The president's financial reform proposals would authorize the Federal Reserve to become the super-regulator of the entire financial system--empowered in privileged secrecy to decide the most fateful matters of who should fail, who should be saved. The largest banking institutions are comfortable with this "reform," since they proposed the idea. Anyone else who looks closely at the Fed and the AIG fiasco should see immediately the alarming implications.

Blocking Bernanke is Smart Economics, Smart Politics for Dems

posted by John Nichols on 01/26/2010 @ 11:08am

If the Democratic Party wants to lose – or, to be more precise, wants to lose badly in 2010 and 2012, it need only maintain its current loyalty to the most powerful interests on Wall Street.
The United States already has a party of Wall Street. It does not need two.
Yet, despite an occasional populist turn (like his current bank bashing), President Obama has with his absurd nominations and even more absurd policies given every indication that he intends to position the Democratic Party closer to corporate interests than all but the most reprehensible Republicans.
Forget about Obama's rhetorical flourishes. As a candidate and as a president, he has too frequently chosen to side with multinational corporations rather than working Americans.
After he secured the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Obama told Fortune magazine that business executives did not need to worry about his talk of reforming U.S. free trade policies; despite some nice rhetorical flourishes on the primary campaign trail in hard-hit industrial states, Obama said, he had no intention of embracing or implementing a fair trade agenda.
Once he was elected, Obama selected as his chief of staff the Democratic party's most ardent advocate for free trade and the broader corporate program, Rahm Emanuel. Then, the new president peopled his administration with Wall Street insiders like Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers.
When it came time to push for stimulus legislation, Obama accepted a plan that squeezed necessary spending for job creation in order to pay for tax cuts for wealthier Americans. Now, instead of the promised unemployment rate of 8 percent or below, we're in double digits.
When it came time to fund an automobile-industry bailout, Obama implemented a plan that shifted tens of billions of money from then U.S. Treasury into the accounts of firms that then announced they would close more than two dozen U.S. auto plants and use the federal money to fund the opening of new factories in China and Mexico. At the same time, those companies forced thousands of auto dealerships to shut their doors and layoff more than 100,000 workers.
In the fight over financial-services regulation, Obama and his aides have repeatedly rejected serious moves to hold banks and brokers to account – creating a circumstance where Democrats in the House and Senate must battle not just Wall Street and the Republican Party but the White House if they hope to achieve meaningful reforms. Even now, as Obama tries to surf some of the anger at big banks, polling tells us that Americans are skeptical – and rightly so, as the president's party continues to collect campaign contributions from, you guessed it, the big banks.
If John McCain had compiled Obama's record, he would be condemned by even the most moderate Democrats as a tool of the corporate elites.
Because Obama is a Democrat, many in his own party continue to cut him slack.
In doing so, they are giving the party of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman just enough rope to hang itself in 2010.
Unless there is a radical shift in direction, Democrats will find themselves running in this fall's congressional and state elections as the party of an economic status quo that most Americans believe is corrupt in its character and damaging in its practices.
How can the Democrats save themselves?
By saying "no" to Obama and to Wall Street when it comes to the direction of the Federal Reserve. Hopefully, that "no" will be heard by the president and his aides in time for the White House to set a sounder course.
But regardless of how Obama responds, congressional Democrats can and should raise the necessary objection – and act upon it when Bernanke's confirmation vote is taken later this week.
The president has nominated Ben Bernanke for a second four-year term as Federal Reserve chairman. No move sums up the failure of Obama and his aides to break with the corporatist policies of the Bush administration more explicitly than the attempt to keep George Bush's Fed chair on the job.
Because the secretive and manipulative Federal Reserve plays such a definitional role in setting and implementing economic policies, Obama's decision to retain those responsible for the current mess is wrongheaded in every sense: economically, socially and politically.
Smart Democrats and independents are refusing to go along with the president's program.
In announcing his decision to vote against Bernanke's reconfirmation, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, summed things up well:

"A chief responsibility of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is to ensure a sound financial system. Under the watch of Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve permitted grossly irresponsible financial activities that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Under Chairman Bernanke's watch predatory mortgage lending flourished, and ‘too big to fail' financial giants were permitted to engage in activities that put our nation's economy at risk. And as it responds to the crisis it helped to usher in, the Federal Reserve under Chairman Bernanke's leadership continues to resist appropriate efforts to review that response, how taxpayers' money was being used, and whether it acted appropriately."

Feingold joins a growing chorus of progressive opposition to the Fed chair's reconfirmation, an opposition that has been led by Senator Bernie Sanders.
The Vermont independent notes that, as chairman of President George W. Bush Council of Economic Advisors and Fed chair: "Mr. Bernanke, who was recently endorsed for reappointment by Alan Greenspan, played a major role in the deregulatory efforts that enabled major financial institutions to engage in reckless and illegal behavior. The American people gave us the responsibility to bring about change, not the maintenance of the status quo. Why, at this difficult moment in American history, should we reappoint Wall Street's candidate as chairman of the Fed?"
Sanders recently offered his colleagues a list of "Four Reasons Why Democrats Should Oppose the Bernanke Reappointment", which concludes: "Instead of confirming one of the key architects of George Bush's economic agenda, a new nominee could transform the Fed into a central bank committed to the needs of the middle class of this country rather than powerful Wall Street executives responsible for the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."
No one with any sense of the mood of the American people regarding the economy could miss the logic of this argument.
Unfortunately, President Obama seems to be missing the point – even with the recent wake-up call from Massachusetts voters who filled the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat with a conservative Republican.
Senate Democrats have an opportunity to do more for Obama than the president is willing to do for himself.
"The defeat of Ben Bernanke would give President Obama a golden opportunity to nominate someone who will move the Fed in a new direction and put an end to the Fed's relationship with big banks and Wall Street," says Sanders.
That's the smart and necessary play.
The Senate should block Bernanke as the first step in forcing the President Obama and his administration to recognize the reality that, according to recent polls, more than sixty percent of voters see: When it comes to economics, the United States is headed in the wrong direction.
Instead of steering toward Wall Street, Obama should be veering toward Main Street.
If the president refuses to make the left turn that is needed, then Democratic senators should take the wheel and correct the country's course.