Confronted by CNN reporter Ed Henry about the administration's BEING BLIND-SIDED by AIG awarding BONUS MILLIONS to executives who presided over catastrophe last year (the bankruptcy of AIG) - from TAXPAYER BILLIONS of Bailout dollars,
...instead of humbly acknowledging that HIS ADMINISTRATION HAD BEEN BLINDSIDED,
Mr. Obama GOES ON THE ATTACK - implying that the American public has NO right to know what his (the president's) Banker Friends are doing with those HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of TAXPAYER dollars!!
This is ARROGANCE bordering on GROSS POLITICAL/financial CORRUPTION - as this blog attempts to sketch the outlines of.
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Just 8 weeks into his presidency, President Obama, who campaigned as a modest, humble, Licolnian underdog "outsider" pledging "TRANSPARENCY" and to make EVERY ONE of his administration's (non-National Security) policies open & public - is now revealing a typical "Democrat in Power" Clinton/Gore/Kerry/Edwards arrogance, elitism, & aloofness, which, coupled with ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in BANK BAILOUTS Mr. Obama has PERSONALLY APPROVED since voting FOR the first Bush-PELOSI-PAULSON $700 billion bailout in September 2008 - Obama's arrogance now flirts with, or crosses over, the line of SHEER FRAUD, BRIBERY & CORRUPTION!
For the FLIP SIDE of President Obama's SNARKY reply to CNN's Ed Henry at the White House press conference last week - that he WOULD NOT COMMENT on the OUTRAGE of AIG BONUS MILLIONS (for executives who would be UNEMPLOYED were it not for BILLIONS of TAXPAYER DOLLARS of BAILOUTS) until "he knew what he was talking about" - is an OPEN ADMISSION that FIVE MONTHS after then-Senator Obama voted FOR the $700 BILLION in taxpayer Bailouts of FAILED banks,
...HE HAS _NO IDEA_ how the money is being spent, or used... or misused, or ABUSED!!
This is, needless to say, GROSS DERELICTION of his FIDUCIARY DUTIES to safeguard BILLIONS upon HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars!
By comparison, former Vice President Cheney & former President Bush had to WORK HARD - create a few wars, bungle a few crisis, "accidentally loose" entire plan-loads of bundelled dollars in Iraq - just to send one or two extra billions of taxpayer dollars to _their_ CONTRACT CRONIES at Halliburton, Enron, Blackwater or even the major oil companies.
("Fifty billion dollars in taxpayer SUBSIDIES for Oil companies making HUNDREDS of BILLIONS in profits per year" were a big, though seldom mentioned, deal in those days.)
Today, President Obama acts as if the _TWO_ (2) SEVEN-HUNDRED BILLION and EIGHT HUNDRED BILLION dollar BAILOUTS that he, as Senator, PERSONALLY voted for (or as president wrote up and sent to Congress) are A PERSONAL SLUSH-FUND for him to DOLE OUT TO HIS BANKER FRIENDS as HE sees fit - NO oversight, much less audits, much less CRIMINAL AUDITS, of banks, hedge-funds, or financial institutions, that EVERYONE in America (EXCEPT for the President & his banking friends) KNOWS are RIFE with MASSIVE FRAUD !!
Note: Obama's TWO TOP ADVISORS, ROBERT RUBINS & TIM GEITHNER, PRESIDED OVER DISASTER last year!!
Rubins took $115 MILLION over 8 years in pay as an executive at Citi-group, only to watch his company DESCEND INTO BANKRUPTCY in 2008; while TIM GIETHNER was just one or two men down the Fed totem-pole from Fed Chairman BEN BERNANKE... who as Chairman of the Fed PRESIDED OVER THE MELTDOWN of the _ENTIRE_ US ECONOMY!!
WHERE THE HELL did Mr. Obama get the idea that THESE two GUYS were dishing out "good advice" ??!!
It is INSANE to take advice from two men who saw their respective charges SELF-DESTRUCT into FINANCIAL MELTDOWN, saved ONLY by BILLIONS of dollars extorted from hapless TAXPAYERS _FORCED_ to cough up billions of dollars to keep up the appearance of solvency!
#1, Washington Post reports: "There are BANKERS who have TAKEN BONUSES - from FAILED, BAILED-OUT banks - INSIDE the 2nd tiers of the Obama White House!
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/should-white-house-employees-keep-bonuses/
#2. Obama White House CHIEF of STAFF RAHM EMANUEL - made $18 MILLION dollars in just three years, parlaying his "Washington Democrat political insider" clout from being a top advisor to the Clinton White House in 1998.... into being an "investment banker" at the Chicago investment bank of Wasserstein-Perrella, which specialized in Mergers & Acquistions.... The type of deals where a taken-over company is forced to LAY OFF HALF of its workers and LOSE PENSION VALUE, to pay the LOANS, INTEREST, and BANKER FEES taken on by the Takeover company during the LBO (!everaged Buy Out) -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/politics/04emanuel.html
#3. Here is an LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik STATING THE OBVIOUS:
Americans should have "A DREAM TEAM to INVESTIGATE the Market Meltdowns"!
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik26-2009mar26,0,6909970.column
The FLIP-SIDE of this common sense - that American investors and taxpayers DESERVE INVESTIGATIONS after well over a TRILLION DOLLARS of investor equity, pension funds, home-equity values (not to mention jobs, benefits, and income) have VANISHED INTO THIN AIR over the past 12 months (NOT including nearly TWO TRILLION DOLLARS of BAILOUTS that President Obama has PERSONALLY approved since September of 2008)
- PRESIDENT OBAMA not only REFUSES to consider or implement such investigations, but he even SNARKILY DISSES New York Attorney Cuomo for issuing subpoenas to AIG and/or other corrupt financial companies!
President Obama is ENTIRELY BEHOLDEN to his BANKER ADVISERS - ROBERT RUBINS, LAWRENCE SUMMERS, Tim Geithner, and RAHM EMANUEL - and the lower levels of his White House are STACKED with other BANKERS and financial types, many of whom HAVE TAKEN BONUSES from TAXPAYER BAILED OUT banks!!
President Obama REFUSING to PROSECUTE what everyone knows is VAST FRAUD in the financial markets, is a GROTESQUE BETRAYAL of Mr. Obama's pledges to the American people.
And if he doesn't put up a HUGE WALL between BAILED OUT BANKS, and his OWN financial team, he will SOON come under suspicion, if not accusations, of CORRUPTION!
#5. Robert Scheer: Obama's TOXIC [Bankster] ADVISORS:
March 25, 2005 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090325_obamas_toxic_advisers/
Scheer: "Like most Americans, I am eager for Barack Obama to succeed, but I see this appointment as further evidence that the president has entrusted his economic policy to the wrong people."
#6. David Sirota: Obama's top economic advisor Lawrence SUMMERS' "$5,000 per-person bank/financial executive CONFERENCE" - WITHIN the White House !! - "IS GROTESQUE!
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12453
THESE ARE PEOPLE OPENLY BENEFITTING from BILLIONS of TAXPAYER BAILOUT dollars - and President Obama's top 2nd or 3rd economics advisor (just after ROBERT RUBINS, RAHM EMANUEL, and maybe TIM GEITHNER) is OPENLY SHAKING Bankers DOWN for $5,000 "contributions" to, literally, get a seat at the table!!
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David Sirto asks in his on-line column:
<< Still angry at Dick Cheney's Secret Energy Task Force? Then I'm guessing you're not going to be happy with Larry' Summers' Secret Wall Street Briefings:
National Economic Adviser Larry Summers is conducting a private briefing at the White House Tuesday afternoon for about 100 financial industry executives attending a $5,000-a-head conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal...The White House said the event is considered "closed press" and one in a series of briefings administration officials have been giving to financial market participants in recent days...Is this what they meant by "the most open and transparent administration in history?" I'm sorry, but its possible nothing nefarious is going on here, but the image alone is just gross. At the very moment this White House is handing over tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to Wall Street, the administration is holding secret $5,000-a-head briefings with the titans of Wall Street. It's just gross. >>
#7. MATT TAIBBI, at Rolling Stone magazine, notices what the INSANELY ARROGANT President Obama PRETENDS not to notice: MASSIVE FRAUD and CORRUPTION in the AIG BAILOUTS and financial meltdown!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover
"The [2008 market meltdown & 2009 financial] crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same [financial/hedge-fund/banking] insiders first wrecked the financial world, then CUNNINGLY GRANTED THEMSELVES NEARLY UNLIMITED EMERGENCY POWERS to clean up THEIR OWN MESS. [massive FRAUD!] And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style DEATH-GRIP on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as [Government appointed AIG Chairman] Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout."
NEW! (we like to think we are ahead of the curve here!) -
#8. NOBEL PRIZE WINNER Dr. Joseph Stiglitz Says
"The Geithner Plan Amounts To BOBBERY Of The American People" !!!
Tuesday 24 March 2008
http://dailybail.com/home/nobel-laureate-dr-joseph-stiglitz-says-the-geithner-plan-amo.html
"Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don't think it's going to work because I think there'll be a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer."
