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Today, in what many will perceive as a blatant example of cronyism, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, appointed a former Goldman Sachs executive, Neel Kashkari, 35, to head the Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability. The new mortgage bailout bill gives the United States Treasury Secretary unprecedented powers over the economic and financial life of the United States. Some have suggested Paulson's plan may potentially have some conflicts of interest, since he is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, a firm that may benefit from the plan. In his position, Kashkari will oversee a program to increase bond sales to help...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Jerry Brown is in an enviable position. He delivered a State of the State address Wednesday that did not require hand-wringing about ugly shortfalls and painful cuts for public schools. As he prepares to run for re-election, he doesn't even need to announce that he is running for re-election. No Democrat dares challenge the 75-year-old incumbent. Sure, state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg wants Brown to spend more on big-government programs. Still, Steinberg mildly told reporters that any differences entail "matters of degree." Republicans know Brown's weaknesses. They don't blame him for the drought, but...

In a bizarre attempt to maintain control of the Republican Party in California, Karl Rove’s hubris is beginning to take on almost paranoid features as he insists that if the Tea Party favorite — Tim Donnelly — wins the gubernatorial primary, it will tarnish all Republicans everywhere: Karl Rove, the prominent Republican strategist, said Friday that Tim Donnelly will be a liability for Republicans nationwide if the tea party favorite finishes second in the gubernatorial primary election and advances to a November runoff against Gov. Jerry Brown. “If the California Republican Party has as the leading candidate, the leading statewide...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The administration has selected a former Goldman Sachs executive to be the interim head of its $700 billion rescue effort for financial institutions. Neel Kashkari, the Treasury's assistant secretary for international affairs, was selected Monday to be the interim head of Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability. The designation was made by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who was the head of Goldman Sachs before he joined the Bush administration in 2006. Kashkari, 35, will head the office created by the emergency legislation enacted Friday to fund the largest government bailout in history.

An official says the administration has decided to pick a key Treasury Department official to be the interim head of its $700 billion rescue effort for financial institutions. The official said Monday that Neel Kashkari, Treasury's assistant secretary for international affairs, will soon be announced as the interim head of Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability. The official asked not to be identified by name because the selection has not been announced publicly.

Speaking to Sacramento State College Republicans on February 19th, GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari said "a single issue voter" whose issue is "assault rifle" magazines needs to find another candidate to support. "I'm not your guy," said Kashkari. According to CalNewsRoom.com, Kashkari's entire comment went like this: "If you're a single issue voter and you just want someone to give you a full capacity assault rifle magazine, God bless you. You can go vote for somebody else. I'm not your guy." California Association of Federal Firearm Licensees president Brandon Combs responded: "California Republicans like Neel Kashkari can't seem to keep...

Despite a rousing speech by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who indicated that he would soon open an office in the state in pursuit of his presidential ambitions, California's Republican Party convention in Los Angeles, "Reclaim California," sounded a note of division, with three prominent Republicans declining to support the party's candidate for governor, amidst growing concern about the party's future as a statewide political institution. Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks), who lost to former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari in the primary election after being outspent in the closing weeks, declined to endorse Kashkari when asked by the Sacramento Bee,...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly on Wednesday lashed out at the GOP elite that is rallying around rival Neel Kashkari, saying they are scared of his own candidacy.. "I'm a threat to the country club Republicans,” Donnelly, an assemblyman from San Bernardino County, told the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board. “I'm a danger -- because I might bring a little more country into the club." Donnelly is the front-runner among GOP candidates to win a spot on the fall ballot to take on Gov. Jerry Brown in the fall. He is running an insurgent campaign on a shoestring budget that...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Republicans who have been trying to rebrand their party as more inclusive and attuned with the issues that Californians care about had hoped this year to offer a candidate for governor who fit that image. Now, however, the party faces the prospect of a conservative gubernatorial nominee who is on probation for carrying a loaded gun into an airport, is accused of race-baiting and is best known for his opposition to gun control and any relaxation of immigration laws. While Republicans do not expect to unseat Gov. Jerry Brown in November, tea party darling Tim...

June 3, 2008HP-1005Statement of Neel T. Kashkari Nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban AffairsWashington - Chairman Dodd, Ranking Member Shelby, and members of the Committee, I am honored to appear before you today as President Bush's nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. Please allow me to express my gratitude to the President and to Secretary Paulson for the confidence and trust that they have shown in me, and I would also like to thank you for your consideration of my nomination. I wish...

Neel Kashkari swings an axe in his ubiquitous television commercial. But he hasn't found an axe big enough to cut into Tim Donnelly's lead among Republican voters. A new Hoover Institution "Golden State" poll shows that Kashkari is only pulling 5% of the vote, barely above the 4% margin of error, a distant third behind popular Democrat incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown at 36%, and Tea Party favorite Assemblyman Tim Donnelly with 12%. A large chunk of voters--35% overall--is still undecided. Kashkari will need to tap into those voters in the final few days of the race in order to finish...

Co-written by Robert Sinche Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for governor of California, just recounted in The Wall Street Journal his week on the streets of Fresno posing as a homeless man looking for work. At the end of his op-ed, Kashkari lamented that he didn't need a higher minimum wage, paid sick leave or a health care plan. What he needed was a job. And Kashkari made the important point that all those government benefits, especially extended unemployment benefits, are work disincentives that may actually block job creation. To be sure, there are signs that employment in the country...

At last month's California gubernatorial debate, Republican hopeful Neel Kashkari praised Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris for using their discretion not to appeal a court ruling that overturned the state's same-sex marriage ban. Kashkari then chided both Democrats for failing to use that same discretion when they appealed the Vergara v. California court decision. The suit is named after Beatriz Vergara, one of nine students who sued to eliminate the state's teacher tenure system. Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu found that the state's tenure and seniority system protects grossly ineffective teachers to an extent that "shocks...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari was already facing an uphill climb to unseat Gov. Jerry Brown this year, and now a new poll shows just how steep that hill is — he’s trailing a registered sex offender. The private poll shows the one-time federal bailout czar lagging behind not just Brown but also a field of Republicans that includes Glenn Champ, who was put on the state’s sex offender registry after he was convicted in 1993 of two counts of assault with intent to commit rape. Before his professed conversion to Christianity, Champ also killed a man while driving and...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie joined California Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari.... (snip) in town to raise money as chairman of the Republican Governors Association ,," "Kashkari riled the GOP when he admitted he had voted for Obama in 2008, ..(snip)

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly took to CNN's Spanish-language airwaves recently to deny accusations that a campaign ad he shot with Cuban-Venezuelan actress Maria Conchita Alonso is racist. The candidate, who is also a state assemblyman, touted his Filipina wife as evidence that he's not prejudiced. "If I am a racist, I'm not a very good one," Donnelly said Thursday on CNN en Español's "Directo USA" show. "I must have gone to the wrong school where you learn how to be a racist because I married a woman with dark skin. As a matter of fact, her skin's darker...

Karl Rove, the prominent Republican strategist, said Friday that Tim Donnelly will be a liability for Republicans nationwide if the tea party favorite finishes second in the gubernatorial primary election and advances to a November runoff against Gov. Jerry Brown. "If the California Republican Party has as the leading candidate, the leading statewide candidate on the ballot this year somebody who has said the outrageous things that he's said and prone to the outrageous behavior that he routinely engages in, it will be used to tarnish not only the California Republican Party, but they'll throw it at everybody else on...

sacremento -- In a lively and sometimes raucous debate, Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican challenger Neel Kashkari provided Californians with two very different visions Thursday night of how they would spend the next four years as governor. For Brown, seeking his record fourth term in office, it was a promise of more of the same, a continuing measured improvement in the state's financial and social well-being. That's not good enough, Kashkari said. "I'm running for governor to help your family," he said in his closing statement. "Don't settle for incrementalism. ... We need big changes."

Neel Kashkari provides Republicans with an excellent opportunity to take the Governors mansion. In California's Tuesday elections, Republican Gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari outlasted a stiff challenge from Tim Donnelly to head into a November showdown against incumbent Jerry Brown. In other notable races, former NFL player Damon Dunn fell just short in his bid for the Long Beach Mayor's office, while contraception cover-girl Sandra Fluke appears to be heading a second place finish the 26th District State Assembly race, which will qualify her for Novembers general election. With nearly 99% of all precincts reporting, Kashkari held an apparently insurmountable...