After three days of blocking debate on financial overhaul legislation, Senate Republicans indicated on Wednesday afternoon that they would end their unified opposition and would allow the bill to come to the floor, saying that back-room talks with Democrats had come to an impasse.
Continue reading "No pajama party: GOP folds, allows financial reg debate" »
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the nation's first off-shore wind farm on Wednesday, giving a major boost to the ambitious alternative energy project that had stalled for years because of protest and legal challenges from Cape Cod residents.
Continue reading "Salazar: Thar she blows!" »
For a third time in as many days, Senate Republicans blocked a financial overhaul bill from reaching the floor for debate on Wednesday, continuing a partisan spectacle likely to provide grist for both sides in the crucial fall mid-term elections.
Continue reading "Finreg Fail #3: August in April?" »
Two years after the near-collapse of the U.S. economy, Senate Democrats failed to muster votes to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster of proposed financial reform legislation on Monday, extending a partisan deadlock over banking regulations.
Continue reading "The Monday Pig: Dems fail on #finreg " »
Goldman Sachs, which is entangled in highly politicized accusations of fraud, reported $3.46 billion in earnings in the quarter ending March 31.
Continue reading "Goldman: $3.46 billion in earnings" »
A double feature out of the Baghdad on Monday: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that two top insurgent leaders, including the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, had been found dead in a hole in the ground -- a spider hole, if you will -- near Tikrit. And an Iraqi court ordered a partial recount of last month's parliamentary election.
Continue reading "Spider Hole II: Nouri's Revenge" »
Monday marks Patriots' Day, the anniversary of the shot heard round the world that commenced the Revolutionary War. It's also the anniversary of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a home-grown bomb plot that killed 168 people and was, until 2001, the nation's worst terrorist attack.
Continue reading "The Monday Pig: Patriotism, Politics and Tranch Warfare" »
In a sign of more aggressive financial watchdog role for the federal government, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Goldman Sachs and one of its officers of fraud on Friday, alleging that the bank marketed an investment product that was secretly set up to profit from failed subprime mortgages.
Continue reading "SEC: ABACUS doesn't add up, charges Goldman Sachs with fraud" »
Goodwin Liu, President Obama's nominee for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, apologized to Senators on Friday for omitting some of his writings from documents turned over to the court, and acknowledged that he used some "unnecessarily flowery" language in his criticism of a previous supreme court nominee.
Continue reading "Obama court nominee: "my record is an open book"" »