Special Features

By suddenly selling much more of the taxpayer owned stock in GM than Washington let on before Tuesday the Obama Administration has made it far less likely that it will fully recover the bailout money when the Treasury Department sells the remaining shares next year. Once again the taxpayers are kept in the dark to…

November 11, 2010 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, The U.S. government bailout of, and acquisition of a majority share in, General Motors was an exceptional action, taken in response to exceptional circumstances. The U.S. stake in GM obviously poses novel managerial challenges to the…

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, The post-election session of Congress “is not for sissies.” It affords a historical opportunity to draw the bright lines between what you stand for and what your opposing Republicans are concretely beholden to. No more generalities or pitiless abstractions for you to tolerate. Specifically, there are two bills in…

September 7, 2010 Members of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator, We are writing to urge you and your colleagues on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs to convene a public hearing to review the government’s deployment of whole-body scanners at passenger…

Dear Mr. President: The spill of nearly one million gallons of oil from Enbridge Energy Partners’ pipeline into Talmadge Creek in Michigan on July 26 further demonstrates the necessity for you and Secretary LaHood to pay immediate attention to the hapless, industry-indentured Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS), which has been, like the Minerals Management Service,…

Dear President Obama: It is time for you to give taxpayers, consumers, and investors a reason to believe that you are truly interested in consumer protection by nominating Professor Elizabeth Warren to be the Director of the much-anticipated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Professor Warren combines rigorous scholarship, a superb sense of needed change and…

Dear Chairman Bernanke: On July 17, 2008, David Rogers, the respected Congressional reporter for Politico wrote an article titled “Pelosi-Paulson tension Rises,” in which he had the following paragraph: “Earlier in the day, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke assured lawmakers that Fannie and Freddie, the two government-supported enterprises, are ‘adequately capitalized’ and ‘in no danger…

Dear Mr. Selig: Now that you have had over a month to absorb and digest the reactions to what a sports writer called the worst umpire call since the 1850s, it is time for you to respect the vast majority of the fans, players and coaches who either believe that umpire Jim Joyce’s call should…

Supreme Court nominations are a rare opportunity for millions of Americans to watch, learn and converse about what the Court, the Constitution and the Justices mean for their way of life, their freedoms and their livelihoods. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee should consider asking Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who has been nominated to be…

May 28, 2010 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, It is important for citizens to give their President cautionary alerts about serious potential risks to the public’s health. Enclosed is a letter from members of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) science faculty (including…