Open Letter to President Obama on the Nomination of Elizabeth Warren

[babsbunny]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/02

by Ralph Nader

April 1, 2011

Dear President Obama:

An interesting contrast is playing out at the White House these days—between your expressed praise of General Electric’s CEO, Jeffrey R. Immelt and the silence regarding the widely desired nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Regulatory Bureau within the Federal Reserve.

On one hand, you promptly appointed Mr. Immelt to be the chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitive, while letting him keep his full time lucrative position as CEO of General Electric (The Corporate State Expands). At the announcement, you said that Mr. Immelt “understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy.”

Did you mean that he understands how to avoid all federal income taxes for his company’s $14.2 billion in profits last year, while corralling a $3.2 billion benefit? Or did you mean that he understands how to get a federal bailout for GE Capital and its reckless exposure to risky debt? Or could you have meant that GE knows how to block unionization of its far flung workers here and abroad? Perhaps Mr. Immelt can share with you GE’s historical experience with lucrative campaign contributions, price-fixing, pollution and those nuclear reactors that are giving people fits in Japan and worrying millions of Americans here living or working near similar reactors.

[Autumn]

1. Like Nader, I also

look forward to Obamas response. I doubt there will be a response, but what the hell, one can "hope". K/R

[Scuba]

2. Love him or hate him, you gotta admit, Ralph speak his mind w/o fear of repurcussions. n/t

[radiclib]

3. FUCK NADER!

He claimed that BUSH=GORE, causing the ensuing global financial meltdown and the massive torture, death and displacement of millions of innocents. Nothing out of his mouth has any credibility. In fact, progressives should automatically oppose anything he claims to stand for, because he's so obviously full of shit. GOBAMA! :bounce:

Do I really need this?--:sarcasm:

[iwishiwas]

4. OP is right--it is a stark contrast between the two.

[sharp_stick]

5. Nader

and all of his acolytes can go fuck themselves. Back to your gated home Ralphie.

[radiclib]

6. Right

I'm sure Ralphie's "gated home" is protected 24/7 by armed security, like those of Obama's closest financial advisors. Unless you're a trolling billionaire, Nader is on your side, whether you like it or not.

[ProSense]

7. Ralph Nader is a clown

<...>

Compare, if you will, the record of Elizabeth Warren and her acutely informed knowledge about delivering justice to those innocents harmed by injustice in the financial services industry. A stand-up Law Professor at your alma mater, author of highly regarded articles and books connecting knowledge to action, the probing Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) and now in the Treasury Department working intensively to get the CFRB underway by the statutory deadline this July with competent, people-oriented staff.

There were many good reasons why Senate leader Harry Reid (Dem. Nevada) called Professor Warren and asked her to be his choice for Chair of COP. Hailing from an Oklahoman blue collar family, Professor Warren is just the “working class hero” needed to make the new Bureau a sober, law and order enforcer, deterrer and empowerer of consumers vis-à-vis the companies whose enormous greed, recklessness and crimes tanked our economy into a deep recession. The consequences produced 8 million unemployed workers and shattered trillions of dollars in pensions and other savings along with the dreams which they embodied for American workers.

Much more than you perhaps realize, millions of people, who have heard and seen Elizabeth Warren, rejoice in her brainy, heartfelt knowledge and concern over their plight. They see her as just the kind of regulator (federal cop on the beat) for their legitimate interests in a more competitive marketplace who you should be overjoyed in nominating.

Yet there are corporate forces from Wall Street to Washington determined to derail her nomination—forces with their avaricious hooks into the Republicans on Capitol Hill and the corporatists in the Treasury and White House.

<...>

He's writing an open letter to the President to appoint Warren to head the consumer bureau, which was made possible by the President's Wall Street Reform bill that Nader repeatedly denounced? The bureau that the President appointed her to get up and running?

If he's going to grandstand he should at least get the name of the organization right, it's the Consumer Financial Regulatory Protection Bureau.