Yesterday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Dan Weiss stood up for working American families as CNBC host Trish Regan and two other guests defended unlimited oil speculators. They dismissed any notion that the wild price swings in the oil market harmed anyone, and scoffed at the idea that the oil markets need reform. Regan scorned an independent report that found unrestrained speculation by investors uninvolved in the oil market caused the 2008 bubble:

Guys, welcome to all of you. According to this report, in the five months from January to May traders poured $60 billion into the commodities market and basically per the report they caused a big spike in oil prices. My question to you is, Dennis, well, so what? So what? They invested in oil, oil went up. What’s wrong with that?

Futures speculator and promoter Dennis Gartman replied, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with it.” Infectious Greed blogger Paul Kedrosky called market reform “insidious.”

Watch it:

As Weiss tried to explain over the rolled eyes and scoffing laughs of the other guests, the oil price spike caused real harm to American families, especially as health, education, housing, and food costs simultaneously rose — also in part due to speculators gone wild in those markets — while incomes declined and jobs were lost.

Today, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released a report recommending specific improvements to commodities markets to eliminate the swaps loophole that encourages risky bets that inflate speculative bubbles. The report also found that trades involving outside speculators (“noncommercial traders”) surged from 10 percent in 2000 to 40 percent by 2008. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said all of the commission’s recommendations “should be implemented immediately.”

Tonight, in honor of the seventh anniversary of 9/11, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) are “taking a breather from their campaign-trail feud,” and making a joint appearance at “a Columbia University forum on public service.”

This forum, somewhat ironically, comes just a week after the Republican National Convention, where McCain’s supporters reserved some of their biggest jokes for community organizers – or those who make a career out of public service. Watch it:

McCain himself, however, has a more ambiguous stance on public service.

Though he is now a solid supporter of AmeriCorps, he initially voted against its creation and later joined conservatives “in efforts to zero-out funding.” To his credit, McCain has publicly announced that his opposition to the program was “wrong,” and he has since co-sponsored legislation to expand the corps.

But despite campaign claims that he “has constantly spoken to the need for young Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest,” McCain has not proposed a comprehensive public service plan of his own. As NPR notes, “McCain said military service is the noblest of all causes. But otherwise, he seems to view public service as something that happens more or less outside of government.”

The Politico noticed the same thing, and wrote that McCain “has yet to offer any proposals to expand or transform national service outside of the military.” And even now, on a day during which McCain will spend an evening discussing service, his campaign website provides no national service plan beyond a page of links to other organizations.

Obama, meanwhile, has laid out a clear plan to encourage public service, in the form of an expanded AmeriCorps, five new “corps” – Classroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps and Homeland Security Corps – and a $4,000 college credit “for Americans willing to complete 100 hours of public service a year.”

Digg It!