The big question in Washington is how long before Afghanistan becomes Obama's war and the economic crisis becomes Obama's recession. No answer as yet to the first but on the second, Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks she's found a way to pin the blame on Wall Street and the Republicans. Pelosi has cause to act: the poll ratings of the Dems in Congress are in freefall. In November polls, voters preferred a Democrat over a Republican in Congress by around 12 percentage points. A new bipartisan poll puts support for the two parties in Congress at dead even.
Pelosi plans to revive the Pecora commission, set up in 1932 by the Senate banking committee to investigate Wall Street and its role in the depression. Named after its chief counsel, New York district attorney Ferdinand Pecora, the commission hauled Wall Street titans before Congress and interrogated them under oath. Among the targets was JP Morgan junior, who had to confess that he had paid no income tax in 1931 and 1932. The commission exposed the conflicts of interest that led to the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banking and the founding of the Securities and Exchange commission.
These days the hearings would be televised to a global audience. Hank Paulson and his old colleagues at Goldman Sachs, along with other financial grandees, would face a tough, possibly humiliating inquisition. This sounds just fine to almost all Democrats, apart from treasury secretary Tim Geithner and his predecessors Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, who would also face a grilling since the Republicans get to choose witnesses too.
What have the banks been up to?
The commission should look into the way the banks have been using the taxpayer funds deployed to bail them out. So far, the published balance sheets of the Federal Reserve have yet to attract much attention. But one small fact in the latest one could be dynamite. Released under the daunting title Aggregate Reserves of Depository Institutions and the Monetary Base, it reports that in April of last year, US banks had on deposit at the Fed $1.8bn in cash beyond the statutory requirements. But by 9th April this year, those deposits had swollen to $804bn beyond the requirement. So just as Obama was pumping $780bn into the economy in his stimulus package, the banks were pulling money out and putting it into interest-bearing accounts at the Fed.
Was it something Cameron said?
There's a wonderful photo of Obama's meeting with David Cameron just before the G20. It showed Hillary Clinton taking notes, Geithner staring in despair and national security adviser Jim Jones sinking his head into his hands. Was it something Cameron said? Apparently, it was a remark of his about our EU partners.
Clinton has made a point of stressing not only her support for further EU integration but also for the Lisbon treaty and the single EU foreign minister it envisages. Joe Biden is even more of an enthusiast. So the London embassy has been tasked by the state department to keep a watch on the Tories and Europe. Biden's aide Tony Blinken has been asking questions about William Hague and the strange bedfellows the Tories are making as they seek new allies in the European parliament. Hague's meeting with a representative of the nationalist and anti-Russian Latvian Fatherland and Freedom party has raised eyebrows after claims that it has joined marches with veterans of Waffen SS units.?
The tale of Joe Biden's puppy
We've all heard about the Obamas' dog, but the tale of Joe Biden's German shepherd puppy, Champ, is more instructive. Biden bought it in December from Linda Brown, a breeder in Pennsylvania who was initially delighted at the publicity. Then the trouble began. State officials arrived in December, January, February and March to inspect her kennels. They said they were responding to complaints, whose authors they refused to disclose. Brown had death threats from animal rights groups. Peta—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—are riled too, claiming that people who buy dogs from breeders rather than adopting them from shelters are responsible for the euthanasia of unwanted pets (in their words "Buy One, Get One Killed"). Brown was told that she was cited for unhygienic conditions, namely one loose dog biscuit and dog hairs on the floor. On 31st March, she had her day in court and was acquitted.?
Win a day with Bill Clinton
Hillary still has campaign debts of over $2.3m to pay off. She's called in James Carville, the strategist behind Bill's 1992 campaign, to help raise the money. Donors to the cause qualify for a lottery with three big prizes. The first is to spend a day with Bill, as part of a New York City weekend. It's a full day of events with Bill, then a day of brunch, a horse-and-carriage ride through Central Park and a tour of New York topped off with a Broadway show. The second prize is tickets for the American Idol season finale, watching the show live and mingling with the judges and celebrities. And the third, possibly less impressive prize, is a weekend in Washington, which includes lunch with Carville.?
