Senator Richard Shelby is making a play to be king of the obstructionists in the Senate. First, he holds up 70 nominees because he wants more pork for his state. And, now, he's doing Wall Street's bidding and trying to scuttle real financial regulatory reform:

HuffPost asked Shelby if Dodd had confirmed to him on the floor that he was moving ahead with an independent Consumer Finance Protection Agency.

"Well, that's been our biggest split, okay, and it's still at impasse there," Shelby said. "But we're talking."

Yup, that's right - Shelby is holding up financial regulatory reform because he doesn't think there should be an organization whose mandate will be to protect consumers. It's been over a year since the collapse that brought about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and, so far, no meaningful reforms have been passed to make sure it doesn't happen again. This is our opportunity to pass reform and all Shelby and his Republican pals can do is say no to meaningful reforms.