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A Warm-Up to Today’s “Central Station”: The TARP Vote + Rahm Emanuel on Charlie Rose

This is an economics warm-up! Check in after 9:00 a.m. today for Larry Doyle’s terrific “Central Station” where you can quiz Larry, who’s also known as LD, on everything to do with economics. (And, if you missed it last night, you have to read LD’s original investigative journalism on SEC Chair nominee Mary Schapiro, a shocking story that no MSM journalist has checked out — except here at No Quarter, by Larry Doyle. And it is essential that you know that LD did the drudgery, including reading the entire 2008 annual report of the regulatory agency that Ms. Schapiro supposedly kept above Wall Street influence.)

Soon-to-be Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel appeared on Charlie Rose’s show for the hour last night. Rep. Emanual verbally swaggered in that oh-so-Chicago-Way, but perhaps a bit less than in times past. In the YouTube excerpt below, Emanuel points out that PEBO is the first pre-inaugural president to pass a major piece of legislation (Troubled Asset Relief Program aka TARP), awarding PBO the right to access the remaining $300+ billion.

Recommended: Check out Jake Tapper’s blog Political Punch at ABC News in which he reveals the names of those few independent-minded Democrats voted against giving President Barack Obama access to the remaining $350 billion. It’s a distinguished group, including my state’s eyes-like-a-hawk, no-nonsense Maria Cantwell. Tapper also learned, by using his many connections, that John McCain reversed his opposition after getting a letter of assurance from Obama’s economic adviser Larry Summers that the oversight will be greater than under Bush.

From our Senate booth, ABC News’ Z. Byron Wolf tells us that if you look at the roll call, you can see that nine Democratic senators opposed giving PBO the money (for the anti-TARP resolution).

They were:

Perennial vice presidential bridesmaid Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bernie Sanders of Vermont (technically an Independent), Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Wolf and ABC News’ Vic Ratner note that of these nine, five are up for re-election in 2010: Bayh, Dorgan, Feingold, Lincoln, and Wyden.

Six Republicans voted to give Obama the money …

GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Dick Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snowe of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio.

Then there’s the hilarity of candidates promising one thing to win a race, and then doing the opposite once in office. Hey, they all do it, as Barack Obama’s followers have discovered. Ahem. (FISA, Iraq, Guantanamo, war crimes trials of Bush/Cheney, and on and on.)

Jeff Merkeley in Oregon ran an ad attacking then-Sen. Gordon Smith for supporting the TARP legislation, but on Thursday, after taking the seat from Smith, Merkeley voted to release the second half of the money he thought never should have been passed in the first place.

Now, here’s the video I promised you, plus a bonus video that you’ll love:

The full video of Friday night’s interview won’t be available on Rose’s site until Monday.

Next up is a must-see video from an earlier Emanuel appearance on Rose’s PBS show.

Did you ever catch this video? It’s quite something. You do know, don’t you, that Rahm’s mother famously said, before this year, that Rahm was the least accomplished of her three sons.

Ari Emanuel is a famous Hollywood agent on whom the character of Ari in HBO’s Entourage was based. And Ezekiel is a world-famous physician who has written an important book on health care.

A rebroadcast of a conversation with Ezekiel, Ari, and Rahm Emanuel. President-elect Barack Obama selected Representative Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff.

Here’s the full program:

  • standard

    It’s 7 degrees at 7 am here in NYC.
    Kudos to the democrats for standing up to Obama.
    It’s going to be a rough 4 years keeping that guy propped up.
    Even worse if Betty Boob Kennedy becomes our Senator.

    Now, I’ll take a look at those videos, Susan!

  • standard

    It’s 7 degrees at 7 am here in NYC.
    Kudos to the democrats for standing up to Obama.
    It’s going to be a rough 4 years keeping that guy propped up.
    Even worse if Betty Boop Kennedy becomes our Senator.

    Now, I’ll take a look at those videos, Susan!

  • standard

    Oh dear God. Apologies, Susan. Please delete one of those posts!

  • getfitnow

    Until these folks are truthful about how bad things REALLY are this is just throwing bad money after bad. All of these retail outlets closing and I imagine, in the end some of these banks too–lots of jobs lost, for sure. But my question is WHO IS GOING TO LEASE THE VACANT COMMERCIAL SPACE LEFT AVAILABLE? This is very troubling.

  • HARP

    The co-chair of Barack Obama’s Transition Team, Valerie Jarrett, appeared on Meet the Press this weekend and used, shall we say, an interesting word to described what she thinks Barack Obama will be doing in January when he’s officially sworn into office. She told Tom Brokaw that Obama will be ready to “rule” on day one. It’s a word that reflects the worst fears that people have for Obama the “arrogant,” the “messiah,” that imagines he’s here to “rule” instead of govern.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Nlq80DVpo

  • Texas Playwright

    Bho the fraud hasn’t done a thing. He is a puppet, a front man, a mouthpiece for the greedy, bankrupting junta behind him. Auto industries, banks, insurance companies, Wall Street fat cats and politicians NEED to fail and fail big before America wakes up and gets rid of them with a big NO to bailouts and a big NO at the ballot box. If enough voters come out, we can win over ACORN and other cheaters in DNC and MSM.

    It’s the era of cleaning house, the White House to start. Then the House of Reps and the Senate. FDR didn’t get us out of the Depression, WWII did. We’re already in two publicized bankrupting wars, not to mention any covert ones–we cannot throw money at programs and “hope” they work at home or abroad.

    Buckle down, bite the bullet, live within our means. That’s the only way.

  • Sassy

    Susan, thanks for the listing of the votes.
    Your Senator Cantwell doesn’t come to the floor often, but she is tenacious when she does.
    Ben Nelson is a republican masquerading as a dem.
    Gregg and Kyl are usually, at least in rhetoric, very tight-fisted. We are in serious trouble…more than we are being told, I fear.

  • C.S.

    “Take power?” “Rule”? Where did they find so many Constitutionally ignorant people to help the-guy-who-won’t-reveal-his real-name “rule” over us?

    I knew there would be dire consequences from the Legislative branch of government not enforcing checks and balances on GWB. Now we have another mediocre guy representing the U. S. who spent $800,000 (to date) to keep from showing his birth certificate to anyone in our Justice system! It’s a sham, a fraud, a…dare I point it out…a conspiracy!¡!

    conspiracy – to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of a secret agreement, to act in harmony toward a common end..;i.e. to conspire to disenfranchise voters by taking legal votes away from other candidates and giving them to another candidate to create a false lead. To conspire to shut down a vote to make it seem a candidate has won before the votes can be counted

    .

    We don’t need to”change” our democracy; we need a new Sergeant at Arms to keep the riff-faff out of Our democracy.

  • Winston

    He is a puppet.

    BHO is not a puppet. A puppet has substance, it is made of something, has a consistent definite form, and is three dimensional. BHO is more like a shadow figure cast on a wall which assumes the contours of the surface upon which it is painted. He has not a shape nor color of his own; he is merely the two dimensional after image of how the media wants him to appear to be. He is not even made of model clay. He is something far less tangible, and more easily molded than anything so viscous as clay. Clay can sometimes shave a mind of its own; not Obama.

  • rolling_thunder

    Ha. Good One. Is Poopelosi the shadow caster?

  • rolling_thunder

    WHO IS GOING TO LEASE THE VACANT COMMERCIAL SPACE LEFT AVAILABLE?

    Everything is connected. Commercial is taking some huge hits and no one is talking about it. They are acting the same way they did for Residential. ‘Stick head in sand.’ If the occupancy rate drops on these offices and retail spaces, it threatens the owners ability to pay back the loan on the building. Then the threat of default lingers. Throwing this good money after bad is like throwing it in the gutter. Without a strong manufacturing base the interconnectedness is broken.

  • rolling_thunder

    They need to put Schlossberg in Judas’s commerce seat. She can travel around the world and we don’t have to hear about her.
    Just Kiddin’

  • AF catfish

    Zeke Emmanuel is Bioethics Director at NIH.

    I saw that video of the three of them a while back. I can only conclude Rahm did not want to join Bambi’s administration at first. I also saw a roast during the primary in which Rahm ribbed Bambi for being too soft.

    Poor Rahm, he’s going to get thrown under the bus like a lot of people.

  • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com/ obamastolemyboyfriend

    That must be why Obama sees fit to spend $160,000,000 on his inauguration! Thanks for tightening the belt Odrama! We appreciate it! Sad to think that money might have been wasted on something like fixing our economy! Yep, you’ll print more. I know, I know.

  • http://baddemocrat08.wordpress.com/ obamastolemyboyfriend

    That silly thing called the consitution? I think they threw that out a couple years ago. Pelosi et al just decided they wouldn’t tell us about it just yet!

  • http://ezinearticles.com/?Three-Basic-Parenting-Styles&id=744499 Northwest rain

    That word “rule” has been used before to describe what 0 will be doing after the coronation.

    This is what narcissists do.

  • Texas Playwright

    Hey, good one. I use “puppet” for immediate imagery and because it ticks off obots. It’s easier to say than a floating, shape shifting shadow with no substance, which, by golly, I can use for people who think for themselves.

    For the run of the mill, uninformed voter, “puppet” gives me an opening to discuss who’s pulling the strings. Bankers.

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