So unusual that Whitehouse and Durbin spell it out exactly why this is outside the norms of usual DOJ procedure in black and white in their letter.

Within the Beltway, that’s what I like to call stating the obvious. 

Because the oblivious Villagers don’t always understand why it ought to be obvious to them that it might be either illegal, wrong, a cover-up or worse.

Ethics and rule of law are a lost art, I fear.

Marcy hit this a bit yesterday, but I wanted to focus on a single paragraph from the Whitehouse/Durbin letter, because it smells so much like CYA (PDF) that it needs magnification:

Your letter does not indicate whether Stephen Bradbury was recused from reviewing and providing comments on the draft report. Mr. Bradbury, who was then Principle Deputy Assistant Attorney General of OLC, is reportedly a subject of the OPR investigation. As such, it would appear to be a conflict of interest for Mr. Bradbury to review and comment on the OPR memorandum on the OLC’s behalf. We note that on January 15, 2009, Mr. Bradbury issued a "Memorandum for the Files" criticizing OLC opinions issued in 2001-2003. He wrote that the January 15th memorandum and a previous memorandum were not "intended to suggest in any way that the attorneys involved in the preparation of the opinions in question did not satisfy all applicable standards of professional responsibility." If Mr. Bradbury did review the OPR report, this could have improperly influenced the opinions he expressed on OLC’s behalf in the January 15th memorandum, particularly his decision to emphasize that the authors of discredited OLC opinions on detainee issues had not necessarily violated their professional responsibilities.

Smells like CYA to me. Of course, it has for a while. You? (more…)

There’s a culture, and the culture is that "Wall Street knows best." You know, there were only eight of us in the United States Senate that voted no. This was a huge deal to repeal the protections that were put in place after the Great Depression — a huge deal. Eight of us voted no.

This thing allowed these huge financial holding companies, allowed them to bring significant risk into these banks and, you know, they just went hog wild. And now we’re in a situation in 2009 where we’ve seen this financial crisis and collapse, massive taxpayer bailouts. Now the question is how to put this thing back together and get out of this deep hole….

As Rachel makes clear, good government can be a solution.  In this case, that would have meant leaving Glass-Steagall in place rather than allowing deregulated gambling in the nation’s casinos banks. As Sen. Dorgan said all the way back in 1999 when he opposed the dreck that was Gramm-Leach-Bliley:

”I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930′s is true in 2010….I wasn’t around during the 1930′s or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980′s when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.”

During Rachel’s interview, Dorgan also mentions his 1996 Washington Monthly article, wherein he warned:

…this "false alarm" could turn out to be a harbinger of a real financial conflagration–one that would make us nostalgic for the days of the $500 billion savings-and-loan collapse….And here’s the real kicker: Because the key players are federally insured banks, every taxpayer in the country is on the line.

Apparently, a prophet in his own Senate hath no honor when there is a quick campaign buck to be made from deregulating Wall Street.

Well, accolades ought to be paid. If you have some time today, give Byron Dorgan’s office a call at (202) 224-2551 and say thanks. (more…)

Photo by Toni Frissell at Wiki Watchi Springs. Public domain.

After suffering through what seemed like an eternity of elevator music kitsch (YouTube), I was on an OMB media conference call this morning with Peter Orszag.

These calls are always a bit frustrating in that I never seem to get through for a question. And often have to sit through big media asking the same old, same old from the list of usual talking points.

Today’s, however, was happy departure from that with a few requests for specifics.

Orszag predictably began the call with cheery talk about how close the WH, House and Senate budgets really are. And then got into some specifics about an issue that has been left far too vague: the Volcker PRAB. Orszag characterized it as having three main missions: (1) tax code simplification; (2) reducing tax havens and tax evasion; and (3) reducing corporate welfare redundancies within the code by consolidating and eliminating related deductions and being more aggressive at reducing the tax gap, including an extension of the "Make Work Pay" initiatives. Orszag says they have been tasked to report back to President Obama no later than 12/4/09.

The first question off the bat? More details on the Volcker PRAB. Looks like I’m not the only one wanting more specifics.

Orszag says the tax gap amounts to a floor level of $300 billion per year, and perhaps higher given the complexities of international transactions and hidden revenues therefrom. Obama is interested in being as aggressive as possible in closing those loopholes to recapture taxable federal revenue. And that the group has two constraints: no tax increases until after 2010, and no increases on folks making $250,000 or less. Everything else will be on the table.

There was some back and forth about health care — can a deficit neutral plan be crafted and enacted? Lots of debate and no real answers.

Then the AP reporter asked a questions about GOP criticisms of the budget. YAWN Orszag was particularly hilarious in his response, smacking Rep. Paul Ryan’s "Entitlement Crisis" op-ed in the WSJ as ideas which would have cost American taxpayers millions and their retirement money to boot. FOX’s Major Garrett chimed in with an attempted "gotcha" about some mid-level OMB career employee telling underlings to no longer use GWOT, and someone else from OMB chimed in that they’d already talked to FOX about this once already today and that it’s not official departmental policy. Guess we know what they’ll be flogging today — a tired phrase from a failed era. Feel the burn. (more…)

I do not envy Hilda Solis’ task at the Department of Labor.  Reversing the last 8 years of not-so-worker-friendly Elaine Chao-isms is not going to be an easy task.  Especially where there are these types of concerns: In one case, the division failed to investigate a complaint that under-age children in Modesto, Calif., were working during school hours at a meatpacking plant with dangerous machinery, the G.A.O., the nonpartisan auditing arm of Congress, found.

Well, thank you masters of the universe.

That was quite a display.  But I’m not certain we got anything more out of yesterday’s “don’t show, don’t tell” other than certainty that what we are doing now sure as hell isn’t working.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t quite buy the “look at the shiny object while we hide things under the rug” technique…

President Obama met with small business leaders and others at the White House today to discuss administration plans for that sector of the economy. Prior to the meeting, he delivered some remarks regarding the current kerfuffle over AIG which I found rather vague but potentially indicating that a due diligence review may be underway at Treasury now that public outrage is pushing that forward a bit more. See what you think.

You know it’s bad when even the WSJ’s headline screeches about growing wrath toward AIG’s bonuses. In the clip at right, Bob Kutner makes the little guys get screwed while the big guys fund themselves bonuses point — and see if it doesn’t piss you off, too.

On Sunday afternoon at 5 pm ET/2 pm PT, Marion Nestle will be here for Book Salon to discuss her book “What to Eat.” Marion’s work on food politics has been extraordinary, and she’s won numerous awards — including a prestigious James Beard — for her food and nutrition writing. What To Eat continues that tradition of muckraking on the intersection of food, science, politics and health with some intriguing tidbits on the politics and marketing strategery behind the food we buy.