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By christinedepresent • 14 years ago

Is Elizabeth Warren the next Brooksley Born?

This is cross-posted from my blog how it feels to be fed .

Here is President Obama trying to make a funny at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. He says, "We’ve also begun to change the culture in Washington. We’ve even made the White House a place where people can learn and can grow. Just recently, Larry Summers asked if he could chair the White House Council on Women and Girls."

Eye-rolling aside, the idea that the Obama administration has "begun to change the culture in Washington" is the real joke. 

That Washington culture is explored in a Frontline documentary about Brooksley Born , who warned, in no uncertain terms, Greenspan, Rubens, Geithner (who was second-tier at the time), Summers and everyone else at the Fed and the Treasury Department and ALL OF CONGRESS about the apocalyptic danger of an unregulated derivatives market in the mid-90s. To get her to be quiet, they basically threw the sexist book at her. They tried to intimidate her, they yelled at her (if you were thinking that was Summers, you’re right), told her she was out of her depth and didn’t understand her field and that if they needed to bring in a lawyer to explain to her the role of her small regulatory agency, the CFTC , they would.
By christinedepresent • 14 years ago

Ask Obama about Military Rape

As you may know, the POTUS is taking questions from citizens via YouTube. People (mostly young white dudes, upon first glance) have submitted questions which others then vote for or against. The President will respond to the questions with the most yay votes.

Why all the background info? I’ve submitted a question about rape in the military.

Please vote for my question. (If the link doesn’t work, just search for ‘stop military rape’.) Voting ends at 8 pm tonight!

Here is my question:

Mr. President, you honor women serving in the armed forces in every speech you give. But the truth is that one in three enlisted women is sexually assaulted while serving her country. According to a CBS ...

As you may know, the POTUS is taking questions from citizens via YouTube. People (mostly young white dudes, upon first glance) have submitted questions which others then vote for or against. The President will respond to the ...