Oregon: Wyden

Our own Senator Ron Wyden is getting huge attention from the national media -- since he was one of the earliest voices calling for a stop to excessive bonuses for bailed-out firms. Last night, he appeared on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show. Watch the video (he's on at 4:45): Over at the Huffington Post, their front page had one of the biggest screamer headlines I've ever seen featured the question of the day in Washington - who killed Senator Wyden's amendment to cap excessive compensation for bailed-out firms? From Ariana Huffington's post: According to Wyden, he "spent hours on the Senate...

This morning TPM is reporting that Senator Wyden is demanding much greater transparency following the most recent $30 billion installment of the AIG bailout. Wyden is outraged, as we all should be, by the Fed's refusal to disclose AIG's counterparties, who will benefit from much of the bailout funds. Ironically, while Ben Bernanke defended the Fed's non-disclosure before an exasperated Wyden, just yesterday Bernanke himself blew his top over the AIG fiasco: “If there is a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can’t think of one other than AIG,” he said. “There...

Health-care guru (and all around big-brained) blogger Ezra Klein tosses the idea that Oregon Senator Ron Wyden's health care proposal is slowly but surely gaining juice among key players: And there are structural reasons that Wyden's plan might prove appealing to the administration. First, it's revenue positive at a time when the federal government faces yawning deficits and Congress might become more stingy. Second, it has demonstrated appeal to Republicans -- there are seven Republican co-sponsors -- at a moment when bipartisanship is in short supply. Klein goes on to say that its unlikely Wyden's plan will be the ultimate...

So the new Oregon Republican Chairman, Bob Tiernan, has been out and about talking up the idea of former GOP Sen. Gordon Smith making a comeback by running against Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden in 2010. "It's certainly one of his...