Wall Street is abandoning President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party:

Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, was one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in the 2008 presidential campaign.

A registered Democrat, Mr. Loeb has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats. Less than a year ago, he was considered to be among the Wall Street elite still close enough to the White House to be invited to a speech in Lower Manhattan, where President Obama outlined the need for a financial regulatory overhaul.

So it came as quite a surprise on Friday, when Mr. Loeb sent a letter to his investors that sounded as if he were preparing to join Glenn Beck in Washington over the weekend...

Over the weekend, the letter, with quotations from Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan and President Obama, was forwarded around the circles of the moneyed elite, from the Hamptons to Silicon Valley. Mr. Loeb’s jeremiad illustrates how some of the president’s former friends on Wall Street and in business now feel about Washington.

Mr. Loeb isn’t the first Wall Streeter to turn on the president. Steven A. Cohen, founder of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors and a supporter of the Obama campaign, recently held a meeting with Republican candidates in his home in Greenwich, Conn., to strategize about the midterm elections, according to Absolute Return magazine.

These banksters are turning their backs on President Obama and the Democratic Party because they're not carrying their water. Instead, the President and the Democratic Congress are standing up to Wall Street and holding them accountable.

Feeling burned by Obama, the Wall Street banksters turning to the Republicans and filling their campaign coffers because today's Republican Party is the party of Wall Street.

Today was an historic day.

We did it. Heather Booth of Americans for Financial Reform celebrates:

With his signature, President Obama ushers in a sea change after decades when the big banks were allowed to write their own rules, take advantage of consumers, and collect huge bonuses for themselves while leaving the rest of us to pay the costs of their recklessness. The financial reform legislation will empower consumers by putting an independent advocate on their side when it comes to buying homes and managing their credit. Banks and other financial institutions will no longer be allowed to gamble with our money for their profit, and risky investments will be forced out into the light of day. Families and businesses alike will benefit from increased transparency and security, and from pushing banks away from speculation and towards making sound loans.

We applaud the President and Congress for their leadership in guiding this legislation into law, a clear victory for Main Street. We look forward to ensuring that these strong reforms are implemented with all Americans in mind.

Today, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we get back to work.

Yes we did.

With the landmark healthcare legislation closer to his desk than ever, President Barack Obama is turning his attention to comprehensive financial regulatory reform. The Hill:

President Barack Obama on Saturday slammed “the army of lobbyists” working against congressional reforms to the financial rules governing Wall Street.

In his weekly address, Obama focused solely on the need for financial reform, just as the House of Representatives prepared to cast a vote on the president’s hallmark effort: healthcare reform.

Obama, who has been hard at work convincing Democrats to vote in favor of healthcare reform, did not make any mention of the crucial Sunday vote in his address to the nation.

Instead, he focused on the need for financial reform and zoomed in on the creation of a consumer protection agency at the Federal Reserve to prevent predatory lending. Obama also took a swipe at Republicans for seeking to thwart the financial system overhaul in exchange for campaign contributions from the largest U.S. banks and their executives.

Obama decried the multi-million dollar campaign launched against the reform efforts. The Chamber of Commerce recently launched a $3 million campaign against efforts to set up a new consumer financial protection office. The Chamber has long campaigned against a standalone Consumer Financial Protection Agency as originally proposed by Obama and passed by the House in December.

“For these banking reforms to be complete – for these reforms to meet the measure of the crisis we’ve just been through – we need a consumer agency to advocate for ordinary Americans and help enforce the rules that protect them,” Obama said in his address Saturday.

The Senate Banking Committee is beginning debate on Financial Regulatory Reform. It's time to step up the pressure on the committee members:

Christopher J. Dodd Chairman (D-CT)
Richard C. Shelby Ranking Member (R-AL)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Robert F. Bennett (R-UT)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Charles E. Schumer (D-NY)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)
David Vitter (R-LA)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Jon Tester (D-MT)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Michael Bennet (D-CO)

Call these members at 202-224-3121 and encourage them to pass real financial regulatory reform with and independent Consumer Financial Regulatory Agency.

If you're sick and tired of the unaccountable banksters paying themselves record bonuses after their actions helped usher in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, you should support the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee. Heather Booth of Americans for Financial Reform does and explains why you should too:

Americans for Financial Reform, and our more than 200 coalition partners, applaud President Obama’s proposal for a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee as an important step in protecting taxpayers and ensuring that Wall Street is held accountable. The fee the President proposes will help taxpayers recoup some of the money used to bail out the big banks and financial institutions, and it reaffirms the basic principle that the biggest lenders cannot gamble recklessly and then expect taxpayers to pay their debts.

The President is right, that to get our economy back on track, we need that principle—and accountability and fairness-- to be the ground rule for the financial markets.

This is a good first step - but, more needs to be done. Much more. Heather Booth has a good idea:

Passage of a Financial Speculation Tax (FST) is another important piece of such reform. An FST, in addition to raising $100- 150 billion a year would also rein in Wall Street by discouraging excessive speculation.

Robust financial reform, including an independent CFPA, exchange trading of derivatives, and rigorous, democratic, and accountable systemic risk management is also vitally important to meet these goals.

If you really want to send a message to the banksters who messed up this economy, discourage them from making risky investments. We've seen what happens when risky investments go bad: the global economy is brought to it's knees. Millions lose their jobs. Millions are forced out of their houses. People suffer.

The Financial Speculation Tax (FST) will cause the banksters to think twice before risking the entire global economy on the equivalent of a game of roulette again. Let's get it passed.