Rich Cordray

-by Tim Russo Listen....oooh wah ooohSome folks know I used to have a pretty good Dem rolodex. Thus, in summer 2016 I tried in vain to raise the alarm with the highest-up Democrats I could reach, for months, that Ohio was trending heavily Trump. As a leading indicator in presidential elections my entire lifetime, Ohio trending Trump meant the entire Midwest was trending Trump, too.

Ohio is usually the last place to look for anything progressive happen-- except when it does. The Democratic Party passed away years ago and it's entirely up to individual candidates, like Sherrod Brown, to win elections.

I feel like Austin Frerick, the former Treasury Department economist running for Congress in the Des Moines-based Iowa seat (IA-03), has become a friend aside from just one of the Blue America-endorsed candidates. I feel like I learn something every time I talk with him.

On Friday, Trump appointed right-wing crackpot and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney acting director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. But there already was an acting director.

Governor John Kasich (R-OH) is term-limited and cannot seek re-election. Former Senator and current Attorney General Mike DeWine, current Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, current Lt. Governor Mary Taylor and multimillionaire backbencher Rep. Jim Renacci are all competing in a fiery Republican primary. Kasich is backing his Lt. Governor but virtually every poll shows her in third place behind DeWine and Husted.

"When People Cheat, You Cannot As A Regulator Continue Business As Usual"You probably know by now that a great deal of Elizabeth Warren's new book, A Fighting Chance, deals with creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "I had no doubt-- zero-- that the banks should be held accountable for breaking the law," she wrote.

Tuesday saw two very important Senate votes. First came Harry Reid's cloture vote to end the nearly two year-long GOP filibuster of Richard Cordray's nomination to be Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. The Republicans and their Wall Street masters don't want consumers protected from banksters and they oppose the Bureau itself and have blocked Cordray's appointment for that reason rather than because they found anything wrong with Cordray himself.