That's it. I think we need another good Sicilian kinky-haired, olive-skinned, jut-jawed lawyer from Manhattanin there mixing it up with these Banksters.

Pelosi calls for panel to probe Wall Street

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that the American people are demanding "discipline and accountability" following the multibillion-dollar federal bailouts, vowed today to initiate a legislative commission with broad oversight to investigate the causes of Wall Street irregularities and their full costs to taxpayers.

Pelosi, speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California, said she wants the panel to be modeled after the Pecora Commission, a bipartisan investigative body established by the U.S. Senate in 1932 to examine the causes and abuses of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and to prevent a repeat.

"They investigated what happened in the markets," including conflicts of interests and irregularities that set off such devastating effects on the U.S. economy, she said. When the commission issued its findings during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "they had tangible recommendations," she said, which helped generate widespread public support for major banking system reforms and new securities laws.

You can watch the video segment Bill Moyers featured on PBS. He had a discussion about the Pecora Commission here. (h/t Heather)

Robert Borosage has been calling for hearings on Wall Street for a while now.

CFAF just released a statement on this by Borosage:

We applaud House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to create a special commission to investigate the roots of the financial collapse similar to the Pecora Commission that exposed the crimes and collusion's of Wall Street in the 1930s.

The devil, of course, is in the details – and the people. The commission needs subpoena power. It needs to be able to expose what appears to be widespread fraudulent and illegal practices – that can only be done with the power to demand production of documents and witnesses. It needs a large, aggressive and competent staff able to sort through volumes of material. It needs time to lay out the case to the public. And it needs courageous commissioners and a fearless prosecutor, a modern day Pecora, committed to unearthing the truth.

I was watching FOX News and every panelist was so terrified by the fact that there could be any kind of hearings about any of the garbage that happened these last eight years. They were calling in madness, but not what the Bush administration did of course. That's why the country is in this frakkin' shape. We need to know why and we need people held accountable.