The most courageous vote yesterday in the Senate was cast by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who refused to let the Senate sign-off on an unnecessarily weak Wall Street reform bill. […]

UPDATE 1:00 P.M Dodd just tried to move on amendments by Sens. Snowe, R-Maine, Landrieau, D-La., Vitter, R-La., and Whitehouse, D-R.I., and then proceed to the cloture vote. Sen. Carl […]

Few realized it at the time, but Senator Chris Dodd’s political career ended on June 12, 2008. That day, Portfolio magazine published its blistering expose on Countrywide Financial’s “Friends of […]

Some version of Wall Street reform is going to pass the Senate this week. The question now is how strong that reform will be. There are still three crucial battles […]

The top Republican fundraiser in the Senate, John Cornyn of Texas, just gave a preposterous speech on Wall Street reform in which he pushed the plan recently promoted recently by […]

There are two consumer protection amendments getting serious attention on the Senate floor this week, one of them positive, one of them incredibly destructive. Both revolve around the concept of […]

240 former legislators, bank committee staffers, and Treasury officials deployed to lobby. $600 million spent in lobbying, trade association activity and political contributions since March 2008. And that is just […]

The Senate approved an amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would subject the Federal Reserve’s bailout operations to a one-time audit. The vote was 96 – 0 in favor […]

Last week, Congress decided it would not confront Too Big To Fail, the single gravest threat to our collective financial security. But there are still several key Wall Street reforms […]

Late last night, the U.S. Senate rejected the single most important element of Wall Street reform by a vote of 33 to 61. The SAFE Banking Act would have forced […]

Word is circulating through Capitol Hill right now that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has agreed to back a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve, paving the way for the almost […]

Now that the ideological defense of Wall Street behavior has collapsed, brought down by the wreckage of deregulation, bankers and lobbyists are pursuing a new strategy: fighting the democratic process […]

J.P. Morgan Chase, America’s largest warehouse of arrogant financial elites, has issued yet another deceptive lobbyist smear in the guise of an “analyst report.” Yesterday, the megabank’s Chief Economist James […]

Despite all of the attention heaped on the Treasury Department and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Federal Reserve served as the chief bank bailout engine in the U.S. economy […]

Today is the big day: thousands of people will march on Wall Street this afternoon to protest big bank abuses. After watching Wall Street stack the economic deck against, well, […]

Last night, Senate Republicans proved beyond any doubt that when it comes to the economy, they stand with Wall Street and against everybody else. Joined by lone Democrat Sen. Ben […]

Last week, Larry Summers, the top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, gave a startlingly dishonest interview with PBS Newshour’s Jeffrey Brown. When asked directly why the White House was […]

Sarah Palin’s broadside against the Obama administration’s Wall Street reform proposal is an interesting study in, well, hackery. One the one hand, her latest Facebook post is a disingenuous smear, […]

I generally find Andy Kroll to be both a rigorous and persuasive journalist. He knows what he’s talking about on Wall Street reform, and he routinely pens informative yet approachable […]

The next few weeks will be crucial for the effort to rein in the Wall Street casino and hold the bailout barons accountable. Here’s a list of major Wall Street […]

While playing hardball seems to be working to maximize the chances for decent Wall Street reform, the finesse game appears to be working in the climate debate. On the heels […]

The political battle over Wall Street reform is finally being engaged in earnest. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has formally thrown in his party’s lot with the nation’s largest […]

There are two types of financial outrages: acts that are outrageously illegal, and acts that are, outrageously, legal. Yesterday’s Senate hearing on the rise and fall of Washington Mutual was […]

4:25 Levin is ripping Killinger on option-ARM delinquencies. WaMu performed a study concluding that option-ARMs were about to default like crazy, and right after that study, WaMu started pushing option-ARM […]

Let’s have a frank talk about an uncomfortable subject: Progressives need to raise campaign money in order to get elected and stay in office. Sometimes that money has to come […]

The banking lobby, as corporate lobbies are wont to do, can build a wonderful Potemkin village of consumer delights, where a defanged government beholden to business interests smiles as unfettered […]

The reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve — cleverly timed to defuse the news of burgeoning federal deficits — was preordained. The “markets” demanded it, and […]