The Hollywood Liberal

After Five Hours Of Occupying His Office, Walsh Agrees To Five Minutes With A Constituent
After activists, including an unemployed constituent, sat in Rep. Joe Walsh’s (R-IL) office for over five hours, his staff agreed to allow the constituent , meet with Walsh. After the meeting, which Walsh’s staff refused to allow ThinkProgress to record, the constituent, named Andy Gebel, told us that the congressman and him didn’t agree on […]

After activists, including an unemployed constituent, sat in Rep. Joe Walsh’s (R-IL) office for over five hours, his staff agreed to allow the constituent , meet with Walsh. After the meeting, which Walsh’s staff refused to allow ThinkProgress to record, the constituent, named Andy Gebel, told us that the congressman and him didn’t agree on a lot but that he was glad we were able to get the meeting.

Sen. Corker Accuses Administration Of Playing ?Political Games? With A Nomination The GOP Has Been Filibustering For Months
Even though the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was signed more than a year and a half ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which that law created, is still without a director. Republicans have been filibustering President Obama’s nominee for the position, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, in an attempt to get Congress to gut […]

Even though the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was signed more than a year and a half ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which that law created, is still without a director. Republicans have been filibustering President Obama’s nominee for the position, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, in an attempt to get Congress to gut the agency’s powers.

Cordray is extremely qualified for the position, yet the GOP is holding his nomination hostage because they disagree with the entire idea of the CFPB, preferring, as they said during the debate over Dodd-Frank, that bank profits take precedence over consumer protection. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has even said that the GOP won’t confirm any nominee, no matter who it is or what his/her qualifications are, until the Bureau’s structure is changed.

Despite all that, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) today charged the administration with playing “political games” when it comes to the nomination, adding that he thinks people across the nation want to see the consumer watchdog’s powers watered down:

I don’t know whether you’re enjoying being part of a political game that’s taking place regarding this, but I would just say that, look, some just basic balances, checks and balances, with [the CFPB] I think would cause the logjam that’s taking place on this to really be broken up. And I’m sort of surprised that y’all continue to be a part of this political game that’s taking place, but I do hope at some point in time we’ll be able to have a meeting of minds and just a simple kind of thing that most people in Tennessee and across our country would like to see, and that is some accountability.

Watch it here (starting at 1:37:40).

The gall of a Republican senator calling out the administration for playing political games when the GOP has been blocking the CFPB director’s nomination for months is quite stunning. That they’ve been blocking Cordray in order to gut the agency’s ability to do its job is even worse.

Fortunately, there seem to be some cracks forming in the GOP’s facade, as Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) has said that he will vote to confirm Cordray’s nomination when it hits the Senate floor this week. As ThinkProgress Justice editor Ian Millhiser noted today, if the GOP continues to block Cordray’s nomination, Obama can break out the Roosevelt precedent to let Cordray start doing his job.

Owner of W.Va. coal mine agrees to pay $209 million penalty for fatal explosion

The owner of a rogue coal mine in West Virginia — where sparking machinery and built-up gases led to an explosion that killed 29 men last year — has agreed to pay a record $209 million penalty and make historic changes to protect miners from harm, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

The settlement with Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources, which bought the parent company of the mine, Massey Energy, is more than 40 times the size of any previous fine for a coal disaster. It came 20 months after the blast at the Upper Big Branch mine, the worst U.S. mining disaster in 40 years.

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House panel debates bill that would limit lawmakers’ stock trades

A deeply divided House committee debated Tuesday whether to pass a high-profile bill that would prohibit members of Congress from buying and selling stocks based on non-public information they learn about through their work on Capitol Hill.

Several panel members — backed in part by the testimony of a Securities and Exchange Commission official — said the measure is not needed because existing laws and congressional ethics rules ban such action. They also said they worry that the bill, known as the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, could be used to unfairly tarnish members.

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Gingrich fighting massive debt racked up in campaign’s extravagant early days

Even as he surges ahead in the polls, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is struggling to get out from under a mountain of debt from luxury jets and other pricey expenses racked up in the early weeks of his campaign.

Creditors say Gingrich has begun paying back nearly $1.2 million in bills he owed at the end of September, and his spokesman says most will be taken care of by the end of the year. Other debts — including $42,000 owed to Gingrich himself for the campaign’s use of a mailing list — have already been paid, ahead of those owed to other vendors, according to aides and disclosure records.

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Obama invokes Teddy Roosevelt in speech attacking GOP policies

OSAWATOMIE, Kan. — President Obama came to this tiny middle American town Tuesday to invoke the spirit of a long-ago Republican president in a speech that laid out, in his sharpest language yet, the economic and social arguments he will probably use against Republicans in 2012.

Obama called for a return to modest, middle-class values and said the recent rise in populist anger — from the tea party movement to the Occupy Wall Street protests — was evidence of the need to remedy the growing economic inequality in American life.

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Signs of Nervousness Among Romney Backers
Martin & Burns, Politico
Newt Gingrich’s surge is prompting the first signs of nervousness among top Mitt Romney supporters, some of whom are urging their candidate to take a more aggressive approach to arrest the former House speaker’s sudden rise.Romney’s backers aren’t panicking — yet. But to many, especially among the GOP donor elite, Gingrich looks like Romney’s most formidable opponent to date, and a rival who requires a much more serious response than the previous conservative alternative, Herman Cain.

The Carterization of Barack Obama
Gene Healy, Washington Examiner
If our fashion-conscious president still finds the time to read the lad-mags, December's GQ had to hurt.Obama made the magazine's list of “The 25 Least Influential People Alive,” along with Tiger Woods's ex-caddie, the prosecutor who couldn't convict Casey Anthony, and MTV tart Tila Tequila.

Gingrich Erratic, Undisciplined, Grandiose
Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg
Before Republicans put Newt Gingrich at the top of their party, they should consider what happened the last time he led it.In the mid-1990s, Gingrich was the de facto head of the Republican Party. He helped lead it to victory in the congressional elections of 1994, which brought about real accomplishments such as welfare reform. But once he attained power, both his popularity and that of his party started to plummet. In the aftermath of his leadership, a Republican was able to take the presidency only by pointedly distancing himself from Gingrich.