Free Republic

The powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expanding its investigation of possible ethics violations by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, including improper "backdoor communications" between the panel and trial lawyers suing major banks over subprime investments, IBD has learned. The Democrat-appointed commission, tasked with examining the "root causes" of the crisis, used its subpoena power to extract millions of pages of confidential memos and emails from banks. Those documents were posted on the Web and are now being used in major litigation against these banks. Some documents posted on the FCIC site include correspondence with federal regulators that...

The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a Congressional inquiry. The government commission that investigated the financial crisis casts a wide net of blame, faulting two administrations, the Federal Reserve and other regulators for permitting a calamitous concoction: shoddy mortgage lending, the excessive packaging and sale of loans to investors, and risky bets on securities backed by the loans. < snip > ..... Many of the findings have been widely described, but its synthesis of interviews, documents and testimony,...

WASHINGTON — The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a federal inquiry. The commission that investigated the crisis casts a wide net of blame, faulting two administrations, the Federal Reserve and other regulators for permitting a calamitous concoction: shoddy mortgage lending, the excessive packaging and sale of loans to investors and risky bets on securities backed by the loans... While the panel, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, accuses several financial institutions of greed, ineptitude or both, some of its...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

Phil Angelides delivered his swan song last week, checking out as state treasurer and perhaps ending a lifelong quest for high office. While Angelides didn't rule out running for political office again -- in fact, he seemed to embrace the notion -- whether he could do so is problematic, given the drubbing he took in his bid for the governorship in an otherwise strong Democratic year. Running against an incumbent governor is certainly difficult; in fact, just one governor in modern history, Culbert Olson in 1942, has been denied a second term. But Angelides' campaign was especially inept, and he...

Phil Angelides, the Democrat who lost to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in last month's election, announced Friday that he plans to launch an investment firm, advocate for education causes and lay the groundwork for a possible gubernatorial run in 2010. ``I'll be active in my business and very active in the public arena -- advocating for the issues I believe in, the issues of economic opportunity -- and I will be doing my level best to advance those issues,'' the two-term state treasurer said. ``Some people, after they lose an election, they kind of just shrink away,'' Angelides said. ``That's not...

Welcome to the live thread for the California Primary Election. Polls are open until 8pm tonight. If you are a registered voter, it is your duty to vote and defend your rights and civil liberties, protect your pocketbook, and vote the bums out where applicable. Feel free to discuss issues key to your local area that others may be interested in. Post your polling place experiences if you like. And post numbers as they come in later tonight.

Angelides tells his supporters to ignore polls Insisting he was "undaunted and unbowed" two days before an election he is widely expected to lose, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides dashed from one end of the state to the other on Sunday, hoping to spark the surge of momentum that has eluded him throughout his campaign. "I want you to ignore what the polls say," Angelides told about 100 union workers at a labor hall in Burlingame Sunday afternoon. "Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks he's got this thing locked away." Afterward, he added, "I think you're going to see a big surprise." Schwarzenegger...

Visiting a Republican call center in Chico, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger thanked volunteers and ebulliently assured them, "Things are going really well. The poll numbers show us up by 15 or 20 points." He worked to get out the Republican vote Saturday, appearing at GOP events in Chico, Pleasanton and Riverside, where he was accompanied by Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. As he spoke with a Republican voter by phone from Chico, the governor exclaimed, "It's the people like you that create the action." He urged that the word be put out to "vote yes on our propositions and ......

SACRAMENTO - When he ran for governor during the 2003 recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger described the Capitol as a place where "special interests have a stranglehold. The money comes in, favors go out, the people lose." Even as the governor says he is not returning favors for cash, the money has been flooding in since he rose from Hollywood celebrity to chief executive of the nation's most populous state. An exhaustive review of campaign finance records by The Associated Press reveals that Schwarzenegger is on pace to become the most prolific fundraiser in California history. He has raised $113.4 million...

<p>Tonight's "John Ziegler Show" on KFI 640AM in Southern CA played a clip from Senator John F Kerry's appearance at Pasadena City College with candidate Phil Angelides, Democrat for CA governor.</p> <p>"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."</p>

Former Democratic Gov. Edmund "Pat" Brown dismissed his Republican challenger in the 1966 gubernatorial race as a Hollywood interloper who had no business trying to become California's chief executive. "He's an actor," he said of Ronald Reagan. "You know who shot Abraham Lincoln don't you?" On Monday, the 40th anniversary of Reagan's landslide gubernatorial election, the first step on his road to the White House, was celebrated at his presidential library. The attendee attracting the most attention was another actor-turned-politician, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger avoided discussing the campaign, focusing instead on Reagan's legacy. He also praised Nancy Reagan, the 85-year-old...

Although he is riding into a stiff national head wind favoring Democratic candidates, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger is drawing closer to winning a second term as governor in a state that is arguably the most Democratic in the country. In California, which has two Democratic U.S. senators, fields the largest Democratic delegation in Congress and is home to the prospective speaker of the House, the Republican former actor is running 18 percentage points ahead of his Democratic challenger, according to a new non-partisan poll. Only 57 percent of the Democrats polled said they were supporting Angelides, while 21 percent were for...

Phil Angelides may have won the Democratic primary for governor last April when he ignited the state party convention with a fiery speech slamming Democrats who tried to work with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But that same speech could end up costing the state treasurer the gubernatorial election on Nov. 7. California voters, tired of what they see as years of partisan gridlock in Sacramento, are responding to Schwarzenegger's effort to put a new, bipartisan face on his administration and work closely with the Democratic leadership in the Legislature to get things done. "I'm extremely happy about Democrats and Republicans working...

Democratic candidate Phil Angelides was shocked to discover earlier this year that his 17-year old daughter, Arianna, had a listing on MySpace.com -- a social Web site all the rage among teens. It told a story a dad could be proud of: full of heartfelt praise ("he's pretty fly for a white guy") and starring an affectionate family photo of Angelides, exuberantly hugging his daughter at a father-daughter dance. Though the snapshot of the two-term state treasurer was a charming, unscripted moment that might have softened the profile of usually staid Angelides, the public will never see it: The candidate...

Whether taxes should be raised to balance the state budget and expand services has emerged as the single most contentious issue as Democrat Phil Angelides challenges Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid for a second term. Taxes dominated the televised debate between the two this month. Schwarzenegger pledged to hold the line on taxes while portraying Angelides as being eager to raise taxes. And Angelides insisted that he wants to raise taxes only modestly on the wealthiest individuals and corporations while granting tax breaks to middle-class families and small businesses. In overall tax burden, California stands somewhere in the upper middle...

Democratic candidate Phil Angelides challenged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on gun control and affirmative action Friday at the California NAACP conference, framing the issues as African American concerns the Republican governor should address when he visits the same group Saturday. The Democratic state treasurer questioned why Schwarzenegger accepted an endorsement from the California Rifle and Pistol Association "when our young men and women are being gunned down in the streets of Oakland." He also charged that Schwarzenegger never fought against a voter-approved 1996 initiative that banned colleges and other public institutions from using affirmative action. "I'm proud that I opposed Proposition...

Camejo for Governor campaign launches first-ever TV, radio blitz; Camejo declares race 'over', asks voters to vote for him, not Angelides "The race for governor is over. Once again the democrats have handed the governorship to the republicans," said Camejo in one of the spots, directed at Democratic Party and other voters, who often say they want to vote for Camejo and other Greens but don't want to hurt the chances of democrat candidates.

Gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides appealed to black voters Friday as he tried to secure support from a core Democratic constituency that rival Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has courted aggressively this year. Angelides cautioned community leaders at the NAACP convention Friday not to buy into Schwarzenegger's makeover. He said only a real Democrat would advocate on behalf of minorities and pursue issues they care about. Angelides moved up his appearance at the NAACP Friday so he could appear in Los Angeles with the Democratic Party's rising star, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

State Treasurer Phil Angelides can accurately pinpoint the biggest reason he badly trails Arnold Schwarzenegger in the race for governor: Most Californians either don't know him or have bought the ``tax-and-spend liberal'' impression molded by savvy political rivals. Many analysts suggest that no liberal Democrat -- even one who runs a perfect campaign -- stands much of a chance against the moderate Republican whose Hollywood charm and power of incumbency give him an advantage in style and substance.