According to a source close to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, he is openly against the potential nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The financial reform bill passed by the Senate on Thursday mandates the creation of this new consumer agency charged with protecting consumers from predatory lenders. Geithner doesn't want the most outspoken advocate for creating the agency to lead it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent the White House an "open letter" laying out a proposed roadmap to economic recovery, coinciding with the organization's "Jobs Summit" underway in Washington. The Chamber plans to spend more than $50 million electing Republicans to Congress in 2010 and here are the highlights of their recovery plan. Cut taxes on the wealthy and business, cut or reduce social security, privatize roads, drill offshore, and log national forests.

A new billboard in downtown Mason City, Iowa features our President Obama, flanked by photos of Hitler and Lenin. The billboard headlines “Radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive.” Last fall that billboard said “Obama-Nation, Live Free or Die” with the Communist symbol of a hammer and sickle. It's brought to you by the North Iowa Tea Party. Iowa state Tea Party coordinator John White says, “everything Obama has done is ‘lock-step’ with what Hitler did in his day.” The Tea Party was initially created, funded, and promoted by operators and funders like Dick Army and David Koch.

It looks like the ironic outcome of the BP mess will come in the form of a truly poetic gesture that involves a middle finger offered by BP's treasurer to British and American taxpayers.