The case addressing this question, Standard Chartered v FINRA, has been appealed to the highest court in our land. As such, one might think that most Americans would care to learn if our nation’s top financial regulator did, in fact, engage in a fraud which had a monetary value of between $175-$350 MILLION plus. Not exactly chicken feed.

Why hasn’t this case received more attention? 

For the very simple reason that our major financial media have spent little to no time focused on it. If you don’t think our media is controlled in this country, then you may want to ask why this case has not received more meaningful coverage.

I first addressed this case in the fall of 2009. I personally believe it belongs on the front page of every business section in our country. Why? This case addresses the core of what I have long defined as the Wall Street-Washington incest. The $175-350 million which FINRA retained — rather than having appropriately distributed to its member firms — allowed the major firms on Wall Street and selected FINRA executives to benefit at the expense of smaller broker-dealers. Sound a little incestuous perhaps? You think?

More importantly, this case addresses the fact that Ms. Schapiro and her fellow FINRA colleagues signed a proxy statement used for the merger of the NASD with the regulatory arm of the NYSE to form FINRA that included misinformation. If utilizing a proxy statement which includes misinformation is not an abuse of capitalism and a fraud, I do not know what is.

My link above references several angles in this case and other FINRA and assorted partners’ ‘incestuous’ follies. I strongly recommend you review this wealth of material. You will be busy, but you certainly will not be bored.

Are you sufficiently intrigued to learn a little more about this situation? Let’s navigate and review a recent commentary written by Dan Jamieson of Investment News. Dan writes, B-D Wants Supreme Court to Rule on FINRA Suit:

The high court this month is expected to decide whether to take up a lawsuit brought against NASD by Standard Investment Chartered Inc. over the self-regulator’s 2007 merger with the regulatory unit of the New York Stock Exchange.

Standard, an investment banking boutique, insists that the proxy used by the NASD in soliciting member approval for the merger was fraudulent.

NASD since has been renamed the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.

Government entities, including private organizations with government-delegated authority, generally enjoy absolute legal immunity in performing official duties. Court cases have granted protection specifically to securities self-regulatory organizations.

Absolute immunity covering a financial transaction? Sniff, sniff. Do you smell something? Me, too.

Standard argues that the merger was not a legally protected regulatory function of Finra.

The brokerage firm wants the Supreme Court justices to hear that case because it claims that lower courts have issued conflicting opinions on immunity for SROs and other state actors.

The Standard suit has already been thrown out twice by courts — in 2010 by a New York U.S. District Court judge and then again last year by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But the Supreme Court could take a different view. In June 2010, it ruled that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a private oversight body set up under the Sarbanes-Oxley law, was unconstitutional because its members were not sufficiently overseen by the executive branch.

The Standard appeal has attracted an unlikely assortment of allies among business and consumer groups.

“The case presents a situation where a quasi-governmental entity is abusing its power,” said Ilya Shapiro, a constitutional lawyer at the libertarian Cato Institute, which joined with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in filing an amicus brief on behalf of Standard.

“Our legal interest is really to make government accountable,” he said.

There’s a larger principle at stake: to what extent state actors can be held accountable, said William Anderson, one of Standard’s lawyers at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP. “That’s why the various groups have weighed in” with amicus briefs, he said.

“We’re concerned about the court’s overextension of immunity” to private organizations, said Scott Michelman, a staff attorney at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which, together with Consumer Action, The Project On Government Oversight and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, also is urging the Supreme Court to take the case.

“In this case, immunity has been extended to private corporate actors … in a way that could prevent corporate accountability,” he said.

Standard and its supporters dispute the earlier court findings that NASD’s proxy and merger were “incident to” its regulatory activities and thus protected.

The Cato Institute argues that such a standard “would be the equivalent of shielding a judge who ran down a pedestrian on his way to the courthouse simply because his travel there eventually will lead to his exercising judicial power.”

Courts first gave SROs legal protection in 1985, and the breadth of that immunity has expanded ever since, according to Standard’s supporters.

“It seems to me that what [Finra was] doing was acting as a business entity rather than as a regulator,” Mr. Shapiro said.

Jack Norberg, chairman of Standard, did not return a call seeking comment.

For its part, Finra insists that there is no issue with immunity for SROs.

“Every court of appeals to consider the issue has agreed that SROs are absolutely immune from private lawsuits for money damages attacking conduct that falls within the scope of their regulatory functions,” Finra said in a filing with the Supreme Court.

While FINRA’s lawyers have continually embraced their position on immunity, NOT ONCE have I ever heard or seen these lawyers or Ms. Schapiro address and categorically deny the premise of a fraudulent proxy. What say you, Mary? Did you and your colleagues willingly and intentionally misrepresent, that is LIE, in regard to the facts presented in that proxy?

Finra spokeswoman Michelle Ong declined to comment.

No surprise there. No transparency there, either.

The 2007 merger required NASD members to approve bylaw changes that significantly reduced their voting power in the new organization.

NASD was able to get the changes approved with the help of a one-time $35,000 payment. Standard claims that NASD lied in its proxy and other communications when it claimed that $35,000 was the most it could pay under IRS rules.

An IRS opinion letter laying out permissible amounts that could be paid to broker-dealers to approve the merger has been subject to a court-ordered seal, but in a 2009 hearing, one of Standard’s attorneys said the letter indicated that member firms could have received an additional $35,000 to $76,000.

An additional $35-76k multiplied by 5100 member firms equates to a cool additional $175-350 MILLION plus!!

If the Supreme Court takes the case and rules for Standard, the dispute could go back to lower courts for rehearing, and member firms could possibly get a larger payout, Mr. Anderson said.

One would think a ruling for Standard would also expose Ms. Schapiro and the other defendants in this case for having perpetrated a fraud. What are the ramifications of that? Or is that potential too explosive and unseemly for our nation in its current state? Are we that weak and pathetic?

Where are America’s collective balls? Come on. How about we create some public pressure? Share this commentary as wide and far as possible. Our founding fathers would thank you.

But some doubt that the Supreme Court will let that happen.

“SROs are immune — that’s the law,” said Jonathan Kord Lagemann, a veteran industry defense attorney and founder of the Lagemann Law Offices.

“Whether it should be that way is another story.”

Of course it SHOULD NOT be that way. Providing the cover of absolute immunity for misrepresentations within proxy statements by senior financial regulators is no way to run a country.

Remember, absolute immunity without total transparency is a license to steal . . . perhaps even as much as $175 million.

Larry Doyle

How in the hell is Holder, and every single one of the administrators who went along with this, not indicted and facing trial? I’m no attorney, but I am fairly certain that money laundering is ILLEGAL, especially for the head of the US Justice Department.

As you might suspect, this is all part and parcel of the horrendously stupid “Fast and Furious” gun-walking program. Rep. Darrell Issa is doing his best to uncover the extent of this program under Holder:

[snip] The New York Times reported on Sunday that “in operations supervised by the Justice Department and orchestrated to get around sovereignty restrictions” drug enforcement agents “laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels.”

In a Monday letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Issa announced he’s investigating the allegations made against the DEA in the New York Times article.

“As you are fully aware, since March of this year, I have been investigating the reckless tactics — in particular gunwalking — used in ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious,” Issa wrote. “That operation, which you personally acknowledged was ‘fundamentally flawed,’ failed spectacularly to meet its objective of bring down Mexican drug cartels. Precisely because the ends do not justify the means, the law limits the conduct alleged in this story.”

“Apparently, this same goal of dismantling Mexican drug cartels motivated the Drug Enforcement Administration in aiding and abetting these same cartels in laundering millions of dollars in cash,” Issa continued. “In fact, The New York Times reports that agents needed to seek Department approval to launder amounts greater than $10 million in any single operation.”

Issa wrote that, according to the report, many agents said the $10 million requirement was frequently “waived” because it was treated more like a guideline. He said that means “hundreds of millions of dollars” could’ve been “laundered” into the hands of drug cartels by the Obama administration and Holder’s Justice Department. (Click here to read the rest.)

This just gets worse and worse with every passing day. The NY Times article stated that the DEA did this in order to see how the drug cartels move their money. Because I am sure the DEA/DOJ just couldn’t figure it out any other way than laundering potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. This isn’t just folly, this is sheer insanity, and it starts at the top – all the way to the top with Obama, who is still standing behind Holder. Hell, he picked him in the FIRST place, so that tells you something right there.

And speaking of following the money, former NJ Governor and US Senator, Jon Corzine, is about to be on the hot seat this Thursday regarding the disappearance of $1.2 BILLION of investors’ money at MF Global. That is all bad enough, but like the “Fast and Furious” program, with every day, more information leaks out. Now it seems that Corzine threatened to quit his post if he was not allowed to throw money into European bonds.

And you may recall, Jon Corzine played an integral part in helping this Administration as evidenced by both President Obama and VP Biden heaping praise on Corzine in this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Well, I think that explains a LOT, doesn’t it? But there is oh, so much more on this issue. Guess who sits on the advisory board of the PR Firm that worked for MF Global, and which provided financial advice to MF Global? That would be President Clinton. Former PM Tony Blair, too, but that’s the U.K.’s problem. The company, Teneo Holdings, was paid $625,000 for it’s work with MF Global:

[snip] Clinton’s office insists the former president did not profit from the relationship between MF Global and Teneo Holdings, where he is chairman of the advisory board. But Teneo, on whose advisory board former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also sits, was paid $125,000 a month for at least five months in one of MF’s biggest consulting arrangements, according to sources at the brokerage house.

The relationship was controversial within MF Global even before the company’s financial problems hit the news as executives questioned why an outside firm was needed for work that had long been done in-house.

“I don’t know what they did,” one MF source said. “It was always unclear.” (Click here to read the rest.)

Yes, Obama and Biden’s financial guru will be spending some quality time in front of Congress trying to explain why he was so gung-ho about investing in European bonds, and how $1.2 Billion of investors’ money disappeared.

The workers at MF Global want to know, too, and are suing the executives who ran MF Global into the ground. Serves them right. I hope the workers get a ton of money from them.

I hope Rep. Issa and Congress continues to follow these money trails to the very end. And I hope some of these folks, like Holder and Corzine, end up in a room cell of their own. They deserve nothing less, don’t you think?

Good grief.

While the message of these protesters is still a bit muddled, they are clear on their contempt for corporations, bankers, and the 1% who make more than $700,000 a year – you know, like Obama, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden, people like that. What? Not them? Huh. Did they get a waiver or something? Ahem.

Anyway, their message is all too clear: they hate those damn corporations, dontcha know. Below is a “Day in the Life of an OWS Participant” to drive home that point (h/t to Gina):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uh, yeah. Let’s just go grab a table at Starbucks and reflect on that there thing (as Andy Taylor would say to Opie).

Speaking of another classic TV icon, I think Jim Rockford sums up beautifully many of our feelings about people demanding what is not theirs in the clip below (h/t Helenk):

Click here to view the embedded video.

You tell ‘em, Jim!

It’s Friday – time to take a deep breath, and relax a little. Here’s a little something from one of my favorite Broadway (and “Glee”) stars, Kristin Chenoweth (hey Cuzy’n Cindy, she’s an Okie, too!). Love her (and Dolly, too):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hope you enjoyed it, too. Have a good Friday, everyone!

That are going to make my head explode. First, news that the ten executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are still operating in the red, and which are largely to blame for the housing crisis, got BONUSES. And I am not talking little bonuses, either. Those ten mo-fos got = and you better sit the hell down and swallow whatever you are drinking – $12.79 MILLION DOLLARS. Yes, you read that number correctly.

Gosh, I hate this Administration:

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator for Fannie and Freddie, approved $12.79 million in bonus pay after 10 executives from the two government-sponsored corporations last year met modest performance targets tied to modifying mortgages in jeopardy of foreclosure.

The executives got the bonuses about two years after the federally backed mortgage giants received nearly $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts — and despite pledges by FHFA, the office tasked with keeping them solvent, that it would adjust the level of CEO-level pay after critics slammed huge compensation packages paid out to former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines and others.

Securities and Exchange Commission documents show that Ed Haldeman, who announced last week that he is stepping down as Freddie Mac’s CEO, received a base salary of $900,000 last year yet took home an additional $2.3 million in bonus pay. Records show other Fannie and Freddie executives got similar Wall Street-style compensation packages; Fannie Mae CEO Michael Williams, for example, got $2.37 million in performance bonuses. (Click here to read the rest.)

So they got these massive bonuses for mild improvements after getting $170 BILLION of our taxpaying dollars. Are you freakin’ KIDDING me with this? Outrageous, just outrageous.

Just in case you need a reminder, check out this hearing from 2004:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Good grief, this makes my blood boil.

Next up is the Federal Government’s continued attacks on South Carolina, this time about our new Immigration law set to go into force in January. (You may recall that the NLRB went after SC for Boeing opening up a manufacturing plant here rather than in a union state, despite Boeing having plants in other states with unions, and which cost zero union jobs.)

Yes, the DOJ, that bastion of fairness and justice – cough, choke, cough – is attacking the state’s immigration law, which is similar to Arizona’s. If someone commits a crime, and the police have reason to suspect they are illegal, they can ask for proof of citizenship. If the person is illegal, the police officers will call in the appropriate immigration personnel to handle the offender. Additionally, businesses have to ensure their employees are here legally. (I thought everyone had to do that ANYWAY. I have had to prove my citizenship numerous times for positions I have taken.) But this DOJ takes umbrage with all of that, so it has filed a lawsuit against SC, naming Governor Haley as the defendant.

Now, let’s be clear – in no other country can you expect to go on your merry way if you are discovered to be there illegally. If you think you can live and work easily in another country without a visa, passport, or green card, go check it out. I’ll wait. Oh, no, I won’t because your ass will either be in jail, or on a plane home. No other country, including the two with whom we share borders, will allow you to live and work inside their country ILLEGALLY. Their laws are strict, and THEY ENFORCE THEM, unlike the United States.

The Federal government claims that this is their bastion – that’s their beef. Our governor, a daughter of LEGAL immigrants herself, Nikki Haley, said the government is not doing its job, it is not protecting our borders, it is not keeping out illegal aliens, and they are taking our jobs. Considering SC has higher unemployment than the national average, that is no small thing.

Here is more about both the law, and the complaint against it:

[snip] he government wants a judge to stop enforcement of the legislation, which requires that officers call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally following a stop for something else, U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles told The Associated Press.

“The Department of Justice has many important tasks,” Nettles said. “Two of those important tasks are the defense of the constitution and ensuring equality is afforded to all.”

The law says all law enforcement officers are required to call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally. The question must follow an arrest or traffic stop for something else. The measure bars officers from holding someone solely on that suspicion. Opponents railed against the measure as encouraging racial profiling.

[...]

The law also makes it a felony for someone to make fake photo IDs for illegal residents and creates a new law enforcement unit within the Department of Public Safety to enforce state immigration laws. It also makes it a felony for illegal immigrants to allow themselves to be transported.

Nettles said the law is unconstitutional and violates people’s right to due process.

I’m sorry, but none of those things sound all that egregious to me. The state wants to ensure people are living and working in the state legally, and it wants to punish those who try and get around that by making fake IDs, which I would think is illegal anyway. And this violates” due process”??

You know, if the DOJ wasn’t already such a laughing stock for the crap it has been pulling with not going after actual offenders, like the New Black Panther Party, or lying its freaking ass off over “Fast and Furious,” I might give them a tad more leeway. But they don’t deserve it. Not by a long shot.

Oh, but wait, there’s more. This is from none other than Janet Napolitano:

In a news release, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said South Carolina’s law “diverts critical law enforcement resources from the most serious threats to public safety and undermines the vital trust between local jurisdictions and the communities they serve, while failing to address the underlying problem: the need for comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level.” (Click here to read the rest.)

Oh, freakin’ spare me already. DO YOUR JOBS!!! This is just another wordy excuse for not doing what the US Constitution declares is the role of the Federal Government – to protect the country and its citizens from “invasion.” Do your damn job, and stop attacking states when they have to resort to taking care of their own borders for lack of federal action.

And speaking of the DOJ and lying its ass off over programs like “Fast and Furious,” the DOJ dumped a TON of emails on Congress the night before another hearing on this program. Yep. They have had months to do this, but waited until the very last minute to release 650 pages. Why? Well, because there was a hearing scheduled for the next day, that’s why.

But get this – not only are there more Congresspeople demanding Holder step down, but the data dump revealed the following:

[snip] The new documents, according to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, “indicate that contrary to previous denials by the Justice Department, the criminal division has a great deal of culpability in sweeping the previous Wide Receiver strategy under the rug and then allowing the subsequent Operation Fast and Furious to continue without asking key questions.”

“Most importantly, officials raised very appropriate questions related to Operation Wide Receiver at the same time that many of these same officials were receiving briefings on Operation Fast and Furious,” Grassley said in a statement. “It begs the question why they didn’t ask the same important policy questions about an ongoing case being run out of the same field division.” [snip](Click here to read the rest.)

Have I mentioned how much I hate this Administration?

So, sorry if this makes your head explode, too. I just had to share. I am sure there are things going on in your neck of the woods or with this government that are getting on your last nerve, too. Feel free to share that with us, too. I need an aspirin…

Seriously, Mr. President – put down the crack pipe. We are better off now than we were four years ago? For real? I’m with Speaker Boehner on this when I ask, “are you kidding me?” Boehner continued:

“Why don’t you go ask the 14 million Americans who are out of work whether they’re better off today than they were four years ago?”

Excellent idea, Speaker Boehner. I think we all know what they might say.

But again, don’t take my word for it. Here are just a few of the ways in which we are NOT better off under Obama’s policies than four years ago (H/t to Republican Security Council):

I think that pretty much sums it up, don’t you? I don’t know what President Obama has been smoking, but he needs to stop if he truly believes our nation is better off now than we were four years ago. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So, what’s on your mind today? The House voting to subpoena the White House in relation to Solyndra? The Inspector General investigating over 100 loans made by the Energy Department? The media’s obsession with anonymous allegations against Cain, along with his actually getting snippy with reporters? The convoluted way the media presents “support” for the OWS, like this headline from CNN, “More Americans Supporting Occupy Wall Street**“? (Hint – they put the higher number of people who have HEARD of it at the top, and the much lower number of those who support it further down. How could people NOT have heard of it with the incessant coverage of it??) Up to you – let’s hear it!

**Update: Oops, the new Quinnipiac Poll shows more people have an unfavorable opinion of the OWS folks, so maybe not such a great idea for the Democrats to support it, according to this National Journal piece.

They are creating an opportunity for people who are not part of the establishment of either party to get on the presidential ballot. While I cannot profess to know much about the organization behind this movement, the idea itself is an intriguing one:

For the 68 percent of Americans who said in an ABC/Washington Post poll released Wednesday that they had a negative view of government, the possibility of having a presidential candidate free of the currently gridlocked political parties could be just a few clicks away.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit Americans Elect has collected petition signatures – millions of them [1.6 million in California alone] – in all 50 states to put a “candidate of the people” on the ballot in November 2012. This candidate would be selected through an online draft and nomination process instead of through the traditional Republican and Democratic parties primary and caucus schedule.

“We are creating competition for all these folks who are politically homeless,” said Elliot Ackerman, Americans Elect’s chief operating officer. “A lot of the folks that engage with us are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and those people don’t really have a voice in our political system right now. What we’re doing is really creating an incentive structure so that those individuals will be competed for.”

I understand the sentiment. I too have felt politically homeless since I witnessed the shenanigans of Democrats in the 2008 primaries. Whether one is in favor of Hillary Clinton or not, for her to have achieved a virtual tie in delegates, lead in the popular vote and still be cast aside at the Convention as the clear loser was the final disgrace in a contest fraught with sexist hazing and character assassination. Her opponent, however, received rose petals and caresses from the media daily, coupled with a startling lack of examination for his pie-in-the-sky – and often contradictory — campaign promises.

But Hillary’s treatment – and the disgraceful treatment her 18,000,000 supporters received at the hands of the mainstream media had another effect on the populace. We saw that the media, in the name of anointing their favored candidate was not above calling millions of Americans racist to threaten and keep them in line. Not to mention fellow Democrats calling us every dirty name in the book for supporting the “ho” and not the “bro.”

When we were called “low information, dried-up Archie Bunkers” by pundits and party powerful alike, many of us for the first time stepped back from the party we stood with for many years, ostracized and rejected. For the first time we felt what it must be like to be a conservative in this country, insulted regularly by the bulk of mainstream media and by many elitists in the DNC. As someone who made hundreds of GOTV calls around the country, I found that the “backwoods hillbilly” meme the media tried to sell was a lie. The mainstream media continues to hemorrhage credibility. There are many like me, waking up from a kool-aid stupor, no longer willing to accept demagogic ranting of the left or right at face value when its sole purpose is to fill Party coffers.

Continued gridlock in Washington, the refusal of either side to let productive legislation be crafted if it is contrary to the interests of politicians’ powerful backers, or partisan jockeying to prevent the other side from getting credit for a win has rendered us, for all intents and purposes, without advocates in Washington – regardless of where we fit in the progressive/conservative spectrum.

So far, the group has secured a spot on the ballot in six states, has collected the required number of signatures in four states and has about half the necessary signatures in four other states. Americans Elect spokeswoman Ileana Wachtel said the group would begin the petition process in seven more states within the week.

[snip]

The eventual nominee can be a member of either party or an independent but must chose a vice presidential running mate who is from a different party. Ackerman said he expected many of the losing GOP presidential candidates to move into the Americans Elect primary process after Republicans chose their nominee.

[snip]

“In the primaries you have to go far to the right or far to the left and tickets are having a hard time tacking back to the center,” he said. “Americans Elect allows a ticket to run authentically without having to go to extremes in the primary.”

A coalition ticket is an inviting notion although I cannot imagine who would be willing to abandon their own party in order to couple with the ‘enemy.’ A Sarah Palin perhaps…

While I am skeptical an idea like this can take hold to upend those currently in control of our two parties, its very existence, along with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street should really give those in power something to worry about. Democrats have mistakenly tried to co-opt the current disorganized (and sometimes confused) OWS protests as their own version of the more conservative Tea Party movement, yet increasingly OWS is making clear they feel President Obama has sold out to Wall Street. Republicans also worked to co-opt the Tea Party movement, with mixed results.

Congressional approval is at an all time low. President Obama’s poll numbers continue to tank. Polling also reports that Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, even the currently downward trending Gov. Rick Perry could all beat Obama next year. Even still, Republicans are not all that enthusiastic about their choices. Neither party is anxious to undo the Gordian knot of special (read big money) interests that actually do the governing in this country. The phrase “politically homeless” rings as true as it is painful. To feel like it is not possible to trust the majority of our elected officials to do the right thing leaves many feeling bound and gagged. Americans are inching closer to that pitchfork moment.

Is the Americans Elect concept a good one? If so, who would you want on such a coalition ticket? And do you think there is any hope we can get ever move past the current plutocracy? We don’t want to split the vote and keep an ineffectual incumbent in office, but in the long run would enough dissatisfaction expressed through these myriad movements around the country actually lead to reform of our system?

Only when the failing crop currently in office know they are about to lose their jobs do we have a prayer that they will finally start to do their jobs. And yet, if they are fired, as long as they can count on a ritzy “K” street paycheck or some cushy commentating gig on CNN – what muscles can we flex to keep them honest? The teat is still flowing…

Charles Ferguson

“Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong.”

With those words on Sunday evening, Charles Ferguson, the winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary for his film Inside Job, did a lot more than merely begin an acceptance speech. Ferguson touched the third rail and made a political statement. But did he really? Really? Not in my opinion. Ferguson spoke the truth.

When did the mere voicing of the truth become political? Perhaps in America 2011 those who speak the truth actually stand out because we hear so little of the prized virtue. That reality is a sad commentary on our society.

I commend Ferguson. Backstage he had even more to say.

Reuters reports, Financial Meltdown Documentary Wins Oscar:

Ferguson, a self-described “policy wonk” with a doctorate in political science, interviewed fund managers, central bankers and political advisers for his film, which uncovered an uncomfortably close professional relationship between academia and hedge funds.

But not everyone was willing to subject themselves to his pointed questions, including key players like Henry Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and Treasury Secretary at the worst moments of the economic implosion.

He also expected more from the new government.

“The biggest surprise to me personally and biggest disappointment was that nobody in the Obama administration would speak with me even off the record — including people that I’ve known for many, many years,” Ferguson said backstage.

He believes Americans, who lost homes and jobs in the millions because of shady mortgage lending and bank collapses, are disappointed that “nothing has been done.”

“Unfortunately, I think that the reason is predominantly that the financial industry has become so politically powerful that it is able to inhibit the normal process of justice and law enforcement,” said Ferguson.

Please ponder this final statement for a minute. Is this the nation we want for our children?

Ferguson reiterates a common theme here at Sense on Cents. Technically, this theme is embodied by the term regulatory capture within the financial industry. Evidence is overwhelming that the industry has captured its regulators or, as Sense on Cents has often defined it, the two crowds on Wall Street and Washington have engaged in a deeply incestuous relationship.

Despite the trauma our nation has experienced, we see little evidence of this incestuous activity ending. Why? Why won’t the media take it on? Why won’t the new Congressional representatives take it on? Will it take an even larger crisis to end this incest?

Whom does America need to hear extensively from on this topic of regulatory capture? Sense on Cents is calling on the following individuals to address this topic IN DEPTH. They can address the body of work compiled in Sense on Cents/ Wall Street-Washington Incest.

1. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
2. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke
3. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
4. Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan
5. SEC Chair Mary Schapiro
6. CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler
7. Senators Dodd and Schumer, Congressmen Frank, Issa, and Baucus, and every other representative of the House and Senate Banking and Finance Committees for the last decade.
8. Former SEC Chair Christopher Cox
9. FINRA Head Richard Ketchum
10. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon
11. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
12. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman
13. Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan
14. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
15. President Barack Obama

There is no way this list is comprehensive, but it will certainly make for a good start.

Let’s stop with the bull$#*t!! America needs and deserves total truth, transparency, and integrity.

Unless and until the regulatory capture, that is the Wall Street-Washington incestuous relationship, is exposed and ended, I believe capitalism will never truly rebound and our nation as a whole will suffer. You think I’m exaggerating? Anything but. Why is that? When capital and investors are not properly protected, they will flee. When taxpayers are not properly protected, they grow angry.

What do I envision as the ultimate cost of all this incest? Higher interest rates. As the US Treasury needs to finance an ever growing deficit, the rate of interest it will need to pay will trend ever higher. Who pays? You know who pays. The American taxpayer.

You reap what you sow.

On that note, here’s to the United States of America. Who’s with me? Who needs to be added to the above list and questioned in publicly held, nationally broadcasted Congressional hearings?

Thank you and congratulations, Charles Ferguson.

Larry Doyle

– From Larry’s blog, Sense on Cents

With the mid-term elections five weeks away, it’s desperation time. President Obama scolds voters for “apathy,” and for “not being serious in the first place,” VP Biden tells them to “stop whining,” and Senator John Kerry pronounces voters ill-informed on the issues, i.e. stupid. One has to wonder if that is going to be a successful strategy for getting people to the polls on November 2nd. Well, it may get them to vote, but whether they vote FOR your party or AGIN it is another matter.

President Obama had his best professorial, condescending tone on display these last few days both in his campaign appearances and at the end of his interview with Rolling Stone magazine. As Ben Feller of AP reported in his piece, Obama Now Blaming Democratic Voters for Their Apathy:

Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be “inexcusable” and “irresponsible” for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.

“People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up,” Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and “if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.”

Nice.

The president has been telling Democrats to “wake up” and recognize that he and the Democratic-run Congress have delivered on promises, from a new health care law to tougher rules for Wall Street to more aid for college students. Obama wants disenchanted supporters to see that Republican wins in November would undermine the ability of Democrats to get the unfinished business done, from climate change legislation to allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

However when Obama had a supermajority in the Senate and House last year he did not repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, though he could have. Whether one agrees with the repeal or not, there is little doubt he could have done what he campaigned on if he had truly wanted to. The vote on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was more political tomfoolery. The Dems waited until now so they could say – See, we tried!

CBS news reported on “a stern, lecturing tone from Obama….”

“The idea that we’ve got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible,” he said in the interview. ”

I find it a tad irritating when a millionaire who throws half million dollar pizza parties on our dime deigns to tells struggling citizens what is irresponsible and inexcusable.

The president said he keeps a checklist of his campaign promises and that he has met, by his account, about 70 percent of them.

However, just checking the “done” box is not enough. Passing legislation is not the same as passing effective legislation. Someone ought to remind Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Biden and Kerry of the same.

And do we need scolding now? The president is pretending that people are apathetic because change has not come quickly enough but perhaps they are apathetic because the type of change they are getting is not what they bargained for – nor is it helping.

Even the opportunistic Arianna Huffington noted in her article, Will Obama Appease Wall Street or Struggling Americans, that Obama is not looking out for Main Street in his choice of a replacement for economic advisor Larry Summers. She writes:

At this late date in the recession and with the midterms shaping up as they are, the president can take in the economic landscape and conclude that what most needs repairing is his administration’s relationship with Wall Street? How about hiring someone who would repair his relationship with the 26 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, and send the message: Help is on the way! After two years of governing a country locked in economic misery, you’d hope that Obama and his economic team would’ve learned that what matters isn’t the economic team’s resume or what “signals are sent” to Wall Street, but the actual state of the actual economy. But apparently not!

Rabbi Michael Lerner penned an opinion piece in the Huffington Post just below Arianna’s where he aptly characterized the reasons for Obama supporter apathy. The President and his team seem to think his supporters are angry and apathetic because they did not get everything on their Christmas list. In his article, Obama and Biden Have No Clue What’s Bothering Their Political Base, Lerner states:

It’s easier to believe that their liberal and progressive base is naïve than to acknowledge that we are not alienated for their failure to pass appropriate legislation, but for their failure to fight for such legislation. …[snip]

It’s one thing to make compromises after you’ve struggled for something you believe in, another to make the compromises without ever trying. Liberals and progressives had already been deeply disillusioned after the Democratic sweep of Congress in 2006, continued to fund the war in Iraq despite overwhelming popular opposition to that war. So when Obama entered the primaries and spent much of his time distinguishing himself from Sen. Clinton on precisely the grounds that he had opposed the war from the beginning, he gave his base the impression that he would be a leader who would challenge the war makers. Similarly, when he challenged the selfishness and materialism that pervaded Wall Street, we felt we had a candidate who would be willing to speak truth to power.

But Rabbi – it was words, just words. Didn’t you know that?

We did.

Just as he reneged on his promise to filibuster on FISA and reneged on his signed statement to take public financing during the campaign, President Obama means what he says – until he doesn’t. How could Rabbi Lerner have chosen Obama over Hillary when he had no record of delivering on his promises? Lerner continues…

Many of us will vote Democratic in November, despite all this. But don’t expect us to be able to rally others when the best we can say is that the Democrats and their national leader are better than the plausible alternatives. That is not a rallying cry likely to produce many votes or move us beyond our deep disappointments.

This is the final nail in the coffin and the most honest assessment of the “apathy” many of us predicted two and half years ago when we wrote about the Obama Change Ring and other cheap novelties…

And many others, feeling humiliated at allowing themselves to have opened to the hope Obama elicited, now find themselves either totally uninterested in politics or wishing to strike back at the Democrats for making fools of those who trusted. Obama and the Democrats remain clueless.

Humiliated. Feeling like fools.

People do not like to be humiliated and then scolded for their trouble. Or as Hillary Clinton pointed out on the campaign trail, “you don’t need a President who looks down at you.”

The SEIU also held California hostage when it was trying to reduce its payouts by bringing in their good buddy, Obama, to tell Ah-nold that he would get NO federal money if he touched the SEIU wages. Must be nice to have friends in high places, right? We are talking a union with only a little over 2 million members. That is some level of influence for so few people relatively speaking (the US has over 307 million people).

There is an even seedier side to SEIU, too. Who can forget this scene when a Tea Party member was assaulted by SEIU members:

That is but the tip of the iceberg. Here is another example of SEIU violence which, ironically, is directed toward people it wants as members:

If you go to YouTube, and do a search on “SEIU violence,” you will get more hits than most people have time to watch.

But as Erik Erickson pointed out at , what SEIU did over the weekend is taking their brand of intimidation to a whole new low. As he noted, had there not been a reporter (Nina Easton) living next door to the target house, chances are good we would not have known about their little weekend in Maryland.

What’s Really Behind SEIU’s Bank of America Protests?

(Photo by Nina Easton)

Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb–literally.

Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that — in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action — makes his family fair game.

Waving signs denouncing bank “greed,” hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer’s steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

So these are the depths to which the SEIU, an incredibly powerful (thanks, Obama) union with very close ties to Barack Obama, has sunk. They went to someone’s HOUSE to protest, terrorizing – yes, terrorizing – a young teenager:

Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly “outed” him, and slipped through his front door.

“Excuse me,” Baer told his accusers, “I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.”

When is a protest not a protest?

Now this event would accurately be called a “protest” if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be “mob.” Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might “incite” these trespassers.

Yes, “mob” is the perfect word for what the SEIU members did:

What’s interesting is that SEIU, the nation’s second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President’s Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs — executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer — at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.

In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.

Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives — with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it’s any executive — and they’re on the front stoop. After Baer’s house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).

Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that’s not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.

When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU’s point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting “emotional.” Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: “Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear.”

Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, “People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing.”

Isn’t that just typical? Rather than actually addressing Ms. Easton’s concerns, she is dismissed as being “emotional.” So, let’s add “sexist” to the increasingly long list of things SEIU is, sadly too many of which are negative. But to Lerner’s accusations:

Bank of America officials dispute Lerner’s assertion about the “damage they are doing,” citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank’s support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.

SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers — and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank’s image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union’s lender of choice — and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.

Banks: The new punching bag

But SEIU’s intentions, and BofA’s lender record, are ripe subjects to debate in Congress, on air, at shareholder hearings. Not in Greg Baer’s front yard.
Why the media wasn’t invited

Sunday’s onslaught wasn’t designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.

Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union’s leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.

Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He’s not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.

In the 1990s, the Baers’ former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the “politics of personal destruction.” Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we’ve crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.

To say this “politics of personal intimidation” is unacceptable is a gross understatement. But it seems to be the MO of far too many Obama supporters (e.g., New Black Panthers in Philly, intimidation and machinations of caucuses in Texas, and on it goes). Where does it stop with these people?

Going to someone’s house, in 14 buses, no less, on a weekend, with no permit to protest, and a DC police escort to this home in Maryland, terrorizing a 14 year old boy, takes this to a whole new level, or new depth, however you want to spell it. I spell it, “D-E-S-P-I-C-A-B-L-E.”

UPDATE: Now the DC Metro Police claim they contacted Montgomery County Police, and broke away at the border. The Chief said one police officer accidentally crossed over. A Montgomery Police Captain claimed since the SEIU dispersed peacefully from the front STOOP of the house, there were no arrests. Thanks to ~~JustMe~~ for the link to the video of the SEIU members. I will keep an eye out for the video of the two police officers making their claims regarding the Metro PD, and the Montgomery PD. Currently, there is a major contradiction between what Captain Paul Stark is saying, and the statement issued by Cpl Daniel Friz who said there was NO courtesy call that a protest was heading toward Montgomery County, and that the DC police were ON SITE in MD. Someone ain’t telling the truth here. Wonder why??

FINALLY, here are the two police officers giving their side. Bear in mind that AFTER this interview, the underling in Montgomery County contends there were NO phone calls from Metro DC police:

We are at a remarkable moment. We have an open, 2,000-mile border to our south, and the entity with the power to enforce the law and impose safety and order will not do it. Wall Street collapsed, taking Main Street’s money with it, and the government can’t really figure out what to do about it because the government itself was deeply implicated in the crash, and both political parties are full of people whose political careers have been made possible by Wall Street contributions. Meanwhile we pass huge laws, bills so comprehensive, omnibus and transformative that no one knows what’s in them and no one—literally, no one—knows how exactly they will be executed or interpreted. Citizens search for new laws online, pore over them at night, and come away knowing no more than they did before they typed “dot-gov.”

It is not that no one’s in control. Washington is full of people who insist they’re in control and who go to great lengths to display their power. It’s that no one takes responsibility and authority. Washington daily delivers to the people two stark and utterly conflicting messages: “We control everything” and “You’re on your own.”

All this contributes to a deep and growing alienation between the people of America and the government of America in Washington.

None of this happened overnight. It is, most recently, the result of two wars that were supposed to be cakewalks, Katrina, the crash, and the phenomenon of a federal government that seemed less and less competent attempting to do more and more by passing bigger and bigger laws.

Add to this states on the verge of bankruptcy, the looming debt crisis of the federal government, and the likelihood of ever-rising taxes. Shake it all together, and you have the makings of the big alienation. Alienation is often followed by full-blown antagonism, and antagonism by breakage.

Ms. Noonan also states:

The right never trusted the government, but now the middle doesn’t.

If Jane Hamsher is to be believed, many on the left aren’t thrilled either.

Of course, the White House is going to go after Social Security again. It’s the pot of gold at the end of Wall Street’s rainbow, and they desperately want that injection of cash which could keep their giant ponzi scheme from exploding. . . for a little while.

Lucky for them, Obama has successfully dismantled the opposition that kept George Bush from privatizing Social Security at Wall Street’s behest only a few years ago. Did anybody fail to get that message when majority whip Dick Durbin yesterday told “bleeding heart liberals” that they need to be willing to accept cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits for the economic well-being of the nation?

…Just as the choice groups sat on their hands for the Nelson amendment in the health care bill, just like the Sierra Club remains mute in the wake of an oil spill the size of Delaware, there will be nothing more than progressive window-dressing in opposition to cutting Social Security benefits this time around. Any of these groups utter so much as a whimper in response to Durbin’s very alarming statement yesterday? Nada. Zip. Zero.

The idea that the right is more “authoritarian” and top-down than the left is absurd.

Good point, Ms. Hamsher – I don’t much trust what’s coming out of either side.

Ms. Noonan then discusses the much criticized law that Arizona’s passed out of frustration to control its borders:

It is doing this because the federal government won’t, and because Arizonans have a crisis on their hands, areas on the border where criminal behavior flourishes, where there have been kidnappings, murders and gang violence. If the law is abusive, it will be determined quickly enough, in the courts…

But the larger point is that Arizona is moving forward because the government in Washington has completely abdicated its responsibility. For 10 years—at least—through two administrations, Washington deliberately did nothing to ease the crisis on the borders because politicians calculated that an air of mounting crisis would spur mounting support for what Washington thought was appropriate reform—i.e., reform that would help the Democratic and Republican parties.

[snip]

The American president has the power to control America’s borders if he wants to, but George W. Bush and Barack Obama did not and do not want to, and for the same reason, and we all know what it is. The fastest-growing demographic in America is the Hispanic vote, and if either party cracks down on illegal immigration, it risks losing that vote for generations.

But while the Democrats worry about the prospects of the Democrats and the Republicans about the well-being of the Republicans, who worries about America?

No one. Which the American people have noticed, and which adds to the dangerous alienation—actually it’s at the heart of the alienation—of the age.

Both Hamsher and Noonan make clear that we don’t have much by way of allies in the persons of our government officials. It is apparent to anyone half awake that Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, capture an issue in furtherance of their careers and little else. There is a line in the movie “Syriana” –

“We want to give the appearance of doing our due diligence. But we don’t want to do our due diligence.”

Noonan uses the issue of government’s failure to secure the border to the same effect in her piece as Hamsher uses “the giant flaming ball of oil being pushed straight for the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi” that “[m]ight be the worst environmental event in decades” in hers – as examples of government ineffectiveness due as the result of succumbing to interest groups rather than doing what is best for the American people.

For those of us at NoQuarter long shouting in frustration for better leadership than what was being foisted upon us all, it is ironic that Noonan may be the first major pundit to make the following observation:

I asked a campaigner for Hillary Clinton recently where her sturdy, pantsuited supporters had gone. They didn’t seem part of the Obama brigades. “Some of them are at the tea party,” she said.

Though I don’t care for her “sturdy, pantsuit” snark –she notes correctly that we feel we have no place in this new world order of the Democratic party. Perrylogan, one of the commenters to Hamsher’s piece, makes clear why:

The progressive movement died during the primaries, when Obama’s supporters started calling their fellow Democrats racists.

Amen.

In the universe of President Obama, the second “Great Uniter” in a row (George Bush II being the first), we are now more divided against ourselves than ever. It also looks as though many are feeling divided from the very people we have elected to protect our best interests.

Much of this is the result of the politics of demagoguery – served up to control the populace rather than to assist it, to divide us from each other, so we never take the time to notice we have far more in common than we realize.

All this jumble is to say that when two ladies from opposite sides of the aisle express this much anger and frustration, it is time for our politicians to wake up – lest we do figure out how to unite peacefully. Then those elitists Jane, Peggy and we all rage against might be ridden out of town on a rail.

“We’re going to have to make some tough choices” about the deficit and national debt, President Obama said to a crowded gymnasium full of supporters at Indian Hills Community College, after a lengthy riff on how the unsustainable debt would need to be tackled.

This, unlike most of what the president said during the town hall meeting, was met with silence.

“I noticed I didn’t get a lot of clapping about the whole ‘We’re gonna have the hard choices’ thing,” the president ribbed the crowd.

The President is ribbing the crowd? Now that’s what I call “The Audacity of Hope.” Half million dollar pizza parties. The most expensive inauguration in history. After this gentleman spent all of last year more than tripling spending (yes, I know, I know, it was all Bush’s fault) now he wants to tell the American people it is time to make some hard choices?

More frustrating than the endless campaigning and political posturing is the notion that the American people are so bloody stupid, they will not leap to the same conclusions I just did. Further, he tells us this stuff as if he just thought of it. Haven’t the tea partiers, for one, been screaming about these very problems for over a year?

Could it be President Obama is not aware why his audience sat on their hands for his remark about “hard choices?” I cannot prove that the people of Ottumwa, Iowa agree with my assessment but perhaps this might be a reason why he did not receive the adulation he is used to and so craves:

It is offensive to be lectured to about fiscal restraint by a man who has been spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor for the better part of a year and a half, bailing out and covering for reckless companies with reckless management styles that continue to scam the American people, hiding the true cost of the legislation his Congress has been ramming down our throats and promising transparency while delivering the opposite.

The people of Iowa, and the rest of American for that matter, have been practicing plenty of fiscal retraint as they deal with high unemployment, watching their savings dwindle to dangerously low levels amidst an uncertain future with an administration that appears tone deaf as to their problems.

Any President that keeps trying to sell the bill of goods that cap and trade is going to help solve our economic problems instead of finally planting his feet behind the desk to figure out how to put more people back ot work in this country really needs to talk less to the American people – and listen more.

“This will bear on how we think about our federal budget in the future,” [Obama] said. “Everybody dislikes Washington right now, and everybody wants to lower their taxes. Everybody hates waste in government. But at the same time, you know, government does some important things like helping to make sure you’ve got clean drinking water and that your roads aren’t full of potholes.”

Please Mr. President, stop telling me what I hate. I don’t hate taxes. I am more than happy to pay my fair share and do so regularly. I hate when my taxpayerdollars go to bailout out the actions of corrupt actors who are not held to the same rules as I am. I do not hate government. I hate bloated government, local, state and federal, that enjoys no end of perks and bloated salaries and perks. I appreciate the good things that government does, which is why I pay taxes. What I don’t appreciate is the things my tax money is supposed to pay for – like education – gets “borrowed” away and never returned.

Clearly, the President has no idea what I hate which gives me a clear indication of why his policies have nothing to do with the urgent needs of the American people.
Close attention need by paid to the following:

…Earlier in the day, back in Washington, DC, he’d presided over the first meeting of his Debt Commission, which will issue recommendations after the November 2010 elections on ways to reduce the $12.8 trillion national debt.

“I’ve said that it’s important that we not restrict the review or the recommendations that this commission comes up with in any way,” the president said at the meeting. “Everything has to be on the table. …This means that all of you, our friends in the media, will ask me and others once a week or once a day about what we’re willing to rule out or rule in when it comes to the recommendations of the commission. That’s an old Washington game and it’s one that has made it all but impossible in the past for people to sit down and have an honest discussion about putting our country on a more secure fiscal footing. So I want to deliver this message today: We’re not playing that game. I’m not going to say what’s in. I’m not going to say what’s out. I want this commission to be free to do its work.”

Could it be he is not going to give you any details about what is “in it” until after the midterms because if he told you now, all his herd mentality Dems insistently following Pelosi and Reid off a cliff would be voted down this November? Is that why we are not getting a report from the Debt Commision until after that?

In Ottumwa, the president previewed for the crowd that whatever the commission comes up with, “we’re going to have a very tough debate about how to bring down our deficits.”

He continued, “as this debate unfolds, I just want everybody to pay attention to what folks are saying. A lot of times politicians will tell you, ‘I’m going to cut your taxes, I’m going to lower the deficit, I’m going to expand Medicare.’”

Don’t settle for that, the president told the crowd. “Ask every politician when they say they’re going to balance the budget and deal with the deficit: ‘What exactly are you going to cut? What spending are you willing to eliminate? Are you going to eliminate funding for sewers? Are you going to reduce the cost of Medicare? Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Who the hell out here has been getting a free lunch. The free lunch has gone to the folks at Goldman Sachs, Fannie and Freddie, and GM (who claim they paid back their bailouts — however they did it with other TARP money).

A free lunch? Why does President Obama insist upon being condescending? Beyond his pronouncements from on high about “bitter voters,” this reminds me of candidate Obama’s pronouncement about Democrats and abortion during the campaign. As reported by CBS News:

“The mistake pro-choice forces have sometimes made in the past, and this is a generalization . . . has been to not acknowledge the wrenching moral issues involved,” he said.

Really? Do we not? Telling us what we do and do not like or believe seems to be a pattern.

Reading the other fine print of his statement in Iowa, he wants us to ask other politicians what THEY are going to do – but we cannot ask the President what HE is going to do. “We’re not going to play that game?” All he is doing is playing games, while taxpayers can only look on in frustration and disbelief.

The president said “the way folks talk about it in Washington,” you might think the debt could be solved by reducing waste and abuse, eliminating foreign aid and earmarks. But those are relatively small parts of the budget, he said.

Which “folks” are these, exactly?

“We could eliminate all foreign aid and all earmarks and we’d still have a huge problem, because most of our budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense spending, about 70 percent of the budget. Everything else we do is only about 30 percent of the budget. So this is going to be a tough bunch of choices that we gotta make here.”

Okay – so here is the bitter pill to swallow – get ready folks. Here come the cuts! So that if you have been paying in to Medicare, as my mother has, for example, in her 50 years in the work force, you can expect less. Presidents like to point toward Social Security’s impending insolvency without mentioning part of the reason it is in trouble is because government keeps borrowing money from it that they do not put back.
Remember his economic advisor Austan Goosbee talked about privatizing Social Security? Do not be surprised if you hear rumbings next year, too – the same rumblings President Bush made several years ago. Now I ask you – would you want the private sector – otherwise known as Wall Street crooks – playing with your dough while you’re busy keeping the roof over your head and don’t have enough time to daily monitor their shenanigans?

“I just want everybody to be prepared” for this debate, which will take place over the next couple years. “Remember when I was running for office, I said I will not just tell you what you want to hear, I would tell you what you needed to hear. And you needed to hear that we’re going to have some hard choices about our deficit.”

Oh, that was my favorite comment of all. I have never heard a bigger pile of horse hooey! And that is saying something. He told everybody what they wanted to hear out on the campaign trail – unicorns and giant popsicles. But little else.

Is there anyone with the courage to stand up and insist that this President start telling the truth? The press has already proven themselves to be, almost uniformly, nothing more than notches on his bedpost, cowed from speaking up for fear of a lack of access, which would mean a loss of their $5 million dollar book deals.

Who is speaking for us?

Thank you. Rant over.

Wowie zowie – no mincing words, just putting it out there. Welcome to the party, Mr. Kneale:

Will someone please rein in our relentlessly hectoring President? Barrack Hussein Obama has taken his gift for inspirational oratory—one of the traits that got him elected—and turned it into something darker and more insidious.

Oh, just stop right there. “Inspirational oratory”? You mean the vapid statements written for him that he read off TOTUS, or this:

I couldn’t listen to it all, either. Hardly eloquent, though, by any stretch of the imagination. Back to the point at hand:

Bam is a bully. Bad enough that he bashes Wall Street, but this President has gone farther than any in modern history in putting the wrong kind of “bully” back into what Teddy Roosevelt had called the bully pulpit.

Obama’s latest broadside came over the weekend, when he vehemently criticized the state of Arizona and its (Republican) governor for passing a tough new law on illegal immigration.

The President called the measure “misguided” and all but labeled it un-American. He even ordered the Department of Justice, before the ink on this bill-signing has even dried, to examine the civil-rights “implications” of the new law. Seems like the courts and rights groups could handle that once any problem actually emerges.

Can you remember any other modern President, wagging a finger from on high, so directly and bitterly criticizing a new law passed by any state?

This is hubris at best and ignorance of the Constitution at worst. The U.S. was founded in part on the precept of states’ rights as an important counterweight to a rapacious federal government. Thus a President must step softly here, questioning gently but avoiding rancor and browbeating.

Hold the phone – are you saying this so-called(by himself and his image creators) Constitutional Scholar doesn’t know the Constitution? Maybe it’s because this is a trumped up title, especially according to those who actually had to work with him at Chicago Law School. You know, at the position he was given by a Board member because he couldn’t get it on his own merits. That one. I know – a mere technicality, especially for his supporters.

Back to the article:

The new state law itself is disturbing, even detestable, and I don’t like it. It forces immigrants to carry with them proof of their legal status and lets cops demand to see the “papers” of anyone (read: any foreign-looking person) to make sure he didn’t sneak into the country. It smacks of Nazis in the Jewish ghetto in Poland.

HOW does this smack of Nazism? Legal immigrants in this country are REQUIRED to carry their Green Cards anyway. Why, if not to be able to produce them on demand? No one is talking about rounding up a bunch of people and putting them in ghettos or concentration camps. They are talking about, with probable cause, to ensure that someone who is engaging in questionable activities is an American citizen or LEGAL immigrant. This is a red herring, meant simply to distract from the issue. Sheesh.

Back to the Obama the Bully:

But it is the law, and Arizona’s people duly elected the legislators who voted for it. They acted, moreover, on an issue the feds clearly have botched—immigration—and are trying to protect the state’s citizens from an influx of drug-cartel violence from Mexico.

Rather than trash an entire state, Bam could have privately lobbied Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and urged her to veto the bill. Or he could have said, simply, that he hoped to pass better solutions at the federal level.

That would have been statesmanlike, but this President gets pouty whenever anyone dares to disagree with him. He seems to view dissension not as healthy public debate but as a suspicious, pernicious challenge to his omnipotence and popularity.

Obama the Bully, at his State of the Union address, had the temerity to criticize the Supreme Court of the United States for its new ruling that companies have a right to free speech in political campaign advertising (a right that unions already enjoyed, by the way). He did this as the justices themselves sat before him in the audience, paying their respects to a leader who showed them none.

Perhaps President Obama had forgotten an American civics lesson: The Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land. It is unseemly and disrespectful for a President to so bluntly and blatantly question the justices’ judgment and intent—especially right in front of their faces.

I can’t remember of any other President in my memory having done this. Nixon maybe? An unfortunate comparison, indeed.

Another civics lesson Obama seems to have missed is what is in the Constitution of the United States, and what is in the Declaration of Independence, again, not so great for an alleged scholar:

Right. I don’t know why Kneale is so surprised by this lack of decorum from Obama. He has done nothing but demonstrate a complete and utter lack of regard for decorum, stepping lightly, or exhibiting any modicum of humility, despite his claim that he is humble (missing the point of the word):

Similarly, President Obama maligns Wall Street for trying to have a say in financial reform and lobbying for its interests, though this input is a vital ingredient in any democratic process. Yet Obama doesn’t criticize giant unions like the AFL-CIO and the SEIU when they similarly lobby on fin-reg.

Why? Because the unions agree with him. Even though Wall Street has a far more legitimate claim to get involved in this debate than do the unions, which represent only 7% of the private work force and essentially should have no dog in this fight at all.

Hmm, now that I think about it, nor can I recall any other modern President who has spent so much effort lambasting his immediate predecessor. Reagan didn’t do it to Carter. Clinton didn’t do it to the first George Bush.

And the worst part is, we’re barely calling out Obama the Bully on this behavior at all. We are becoming entirely too accustomed to it, failing to see it for what it really is: a striking lack of civility, and an overflow of divisiveness, from a President who had promised to give us precisely the opposite.

Great – more from SEIU, the union that represents about 2 million people. Someone tell me again why they are so powerful? Are they now taking over for their sister organization, ACORN, since ACORN has been disgraced? Regardless, it is obscene for them to wield as much power in this country as they do, especially with Obama.

Yes, Obama is a bully. Anyone who TRULY watched him throughout the Primary Campaigns, or the Election Campaigns, knew that.

If you continue to doubt the bullying nature of Obama, check out this article in which he and his team call out SWAT cops on a peaceful gathering of Tea Partiers in Quincy, IL, Team Obama Calls Out Swat Team on Tea Party Patriots!. As you can see from the photo below, there was real cause for concern on the part of Obama and his people:

Ooohhhh, scary grandmotherly-looking women singing patriotic songs as you can hear in this clip (H/t to Logistics Monster):

Quite a difference from this recent protest in Arizona:
Yep, there is no doubt that Obama is a bully. There is also no doubt we are living in Upside Down World when SWAT cops are brought in against peaceful protesters, yet there is not an overwhelming presence in AZ when people are completely out of control. It is simply astonishing. Don’t you think?

Read how Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama’s chief economic advisors, tiptoes, avoids and runs away from this idea!!

CORKER: There is no question, and I think that first of all, I plan to offer changes to this resolution authority that say that, if a large entity like this has to go through this resolution where in essence they’re liquidated in an orderly way, I think that everything that the executive team and the board members have earned through this company over the last five years needs to be clawed back. In other words, there needs to be some penalties assessed to the management that have caused the country to have to go through this orderly liquidation process. So absolutely, I will be offering an amendment that deals with that, so that we’re taking back, we’re clawing back all the earnings that management has made out of this firm, if it has to go through orderly liquidation. I think that’s very appropriate, and certainly I’m going to be doing that on the floor if it doesn’t make
it into the base bill.

TAPPER: Austan, can the White House get behind that clawback
provision? Are you being out-populisted by Republicans?

GOOLSBEE: Well, look, in the bill now — the president went to
Cooper Union this last week to revisit the spot where more than two
years ago, he went and said we need to have fundamental reform–

TAPPER: But there is no clawback in this bill?

GOOLSBEE: There is a requirement that they’re all fired. If you
get to that point, all the management is fired–

TAPPER: So they take their $500 million to their home in the Hamptons.

GOOLSBEE: — all the shareholders are wiped out. Well, look, as I say, on any details, we’re open to looking at negotiating the details of how we carry out the president’s principles. But if negotiation — and Senator Corker, to his credit, is not in this camp — but if the negotiators are going to come forward more as a delaying tactic and we’re just going to put in hundreds of amendments and try to keep this going so as to stall, delay and kill reform, that’s not going to happen. This is going to pass.

Um. No. It’s not a delaying tactic. But since we saw in the case of Goldman Sachs that they were betting on the market crashing and profiting by our losses, we need to find some way to put the fear of God into these jerks so that they do not try to profit by playing Ponzi schemes with our dough. Corker’s idea is just one way to make sure we have leglsiation with teeth.

Whether Senator Corker is just doing some populist-type posturing or not, the point is made — if we don’t have accountability in this reform bill and, as Dem. Senator Sherrod Brown discussed earlier, a way to overcome this “too big to fail” debacle, any reform falling short of tackling those two concerns effectively is meaningless.

What do you think would be fitting punishment for irresponsible and dishonest Wall Street sharks? I have a feeling I know the answer!

Testimony Could Undercut SEC Charge Against Goldman

The government has testimony from a Paulson & Co. official that could contradict its own claims against Goldman Sachs, CNBC has learned.

Paolo Pellegrini told the government that he informed ACA Management that Paulson intended to bet against, or short, a portfolio of mortgages ACA was assembling.

If true, the testimony would go directly against government claims that ACA did not know Paulson was hoping the collateralized debt obligations would fail, and subvert charges that Goldman breached its duty by not informing ACA of Paulson’s position.

CNBC has examined documents in which a government official asked Pellegrini whether he informed ACA CDO manager Laura Schwartz about Paulson’s position in the portfolio, named Abacus 2007-AC1.

“Did you tell her that you were interested in taking a short position in Abacus?” a government official asked Pellegrini, referring to the name of the CDO portfolio.

“Yes, that was the purpose of the meeting,” Pellegrini responded.

Oops. I am guessing that is not the answer they anticipated:

The exchange is key in that the Securities and Exchange Commission is charging that the failure to disclose Paulson’s position was a “material” factor that could have caused both ACA and German Bank IKB to back out of the CDO investment. When the CDO failed, Paulson reaped a gain of more than $900 million, the government has said.

The SEC does not mention the exchange in its complaint against Goldman.

“We look forward to presenting a complete and accurate evidentiary record in court,” SEC spokesman John Nester said in a statement to CNBC.

CNBC further learned that Pellegrini and Schwartz met at least three times to discuss the CDO and Paulson’s short position on Abacus.

Because of the deal’s structuring, Paulson stood to gain $900 million from the deal but lose only $20 million.

Here’s the thing. Couldn’t they have actually done a TAD more investigating before making these charges against Goldman Sachs? I mean, they make the charges just the other day, and voila, a few days later, this testimony comes out completely contradicting their charges. I’m just saying, maybe SOMEONE could have done a little more homework before leveling these charges, don’t you think?

And while I am at it, NQ reader Peggy Sue supplied this fascinating testimony from William Black on Lehman Brothers to the House Finance Committee. It is quite an indictment of a number of federal entities, especially the Fed, as well as the SEC:

Holy smokes. Mr. Black didn’t mince any words, did he? He is exactly the kind of straight talker we need to clear up this big, huge, mess. And he exposes the sheer incompetence of those who have been charged with oversight of financial institutions, especially continuing “business as usual” when that business was costing us millions and millions of dollars.

It sounds to me like there are a helluva lot of people running this show deserving of lawsuits, too – I’m not holding my breath that they will get their comeuppance, though. They’ll probably get promotions…

The article states:

Fraud charges leveled against the investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. center on complex financial dealings. But for President Obama, the accusations against the venerable Wall Street institution offer a chance to revitalize a simple political narrative that he has all but lost in recent months: that he and his party are protecting ordinary Americans victimized by the economic meltdown.

Republicans have been notably successful in mounting populist attacks on the administration, even framing the pending legislation that would increase regulation of Wall Street as a recipe for perpetual bailouts by taxpayers. Now the Goldman case gives the administration a chance to send a countervailing message that government intervention is essential in the face of unregulated trading that favors well-connected insiders.

Treasury officials were all smiles Friday after the Securities and Exchange Commission charges against Goldman Sachs were announced. The SEC, an independent commission, contends that Goldman stacked the deck on billions of dollars in mortgage securities in favor of insiders and against unknowing investors, a charge Goldman denies.

The Goldman case comes along at a time when the Democrats need help. Obama’s approval rating is tumbling and independent voters are disillusioned with his leadership. Unemployment is expected to hover near 10% nationally for the rest of the year.

Well, that’s some interesting timing. All of a sudden, the SEC is filing a civil lawsuit against them? Hey, I’m not saying they don’t DESERVE to have a lawsuit against them, but it is just a little curious, isn’t it? (Click HERE to read the rest of this piece.)

Why do I say that? Because during the campaign, Obama and Goldman Sachs were mighty friendly. As in, Goldman Sachs was Obama’s biggest corporate contributor. Yes, indeedy. Isn’t that curious that he is now railing against them? I think so.

So does Bob Ostretag in this piece, Goldman Sachs, Obama, Money. As they say, follow the money:

When Obama said he wanted bi-partisanship, this is probably not what he had in mind: Democrats and Republicans in Congress speaking in a united voice against corporate executives that have been equally cosy (sic) with Democrats and Republicans.

As in: equally cosy (sic) with Senator John Warner, that bad Republican, and Chris Dodd, who presented himself as a mild progressive in the last Democratic presidential primary.

As in: equally cosy (sic) with the Fed and Treasury under Clinton and Bush. As in: pretty darn cosy (sic) with President Obama himself.

Forget the bonuses at AIG. Chump change. Let’s put what Goldman Sachs has been up to in plain English. Goldman Sachs had made a lot of esoteric financial transactions with AIG. Banks were collapsing at the time, leaving their investors with huge losses. When things started looking shaky at AIG, Goldman and other investors started calling in their claims, and pushed AIG off the cliff.

Now ask yourself: with banks collapsing, why would you push the one you had put so much money in to collapse?

Answer: because you had your boys on the inside in Washington, that’s why. And your boys got a bail-out package for AIG which actually paid you more than your claims that broke the bank. What investors had demanded from AIG was collateral on debts. But they actually got with the bailout was the whole damn amount, 100 cents on the dollar.

Wow, nice work if you can get it, right? And if you’re Goldman Sachs, you did:

To put it even more bluntly: if AIG had managed to not collapse and not require $180 billion in taxpayer money, Goldman Sachs would be sitting today with some very very shaky investments. But since AIG collapsed, the folks at Goldman cleaned up.

Or even more bluntly: Goldman used AIG as a funnel.

That’s a nice trick. It’s like two guys rolling someone on the street when the first guy comes up on the right and throws a punch after which the guy on the left quietly lifts the mark’s wallet. Of course you run the risk that the cops might see you. Then again, if you have the cops in your pocket…

OK, that is a simplification. It is not the whole story. But it is a big part of the story.

But but… wasn’t there an election between the AIG bail-out and today? The world changed, didn’t it?

Goldman Sachs employees gave just shy of a million dollars to the Obama campaign, ranking second in contributions. Citigroup and JPMorgan ranked sixth and seventh. Goldman Sachs gave Obama four times more than they gave McCain.

This is one big fat ugly chicken that is coming home to roost.

So, to be clear – when Obama claimed to be a man of the people, does he mean Wall Street people? Because that’s pretty much how it’s looking. And now he is openly turning against them? Oh, this should be fun to watch:

Our political attention span being what it is, we might need reminding that there was actually a big debate over this very thing last year. From my July 1 blog:

When Barack Obama pulled out of public campaign financing, I wrote a column about his money machine, noting that despite all the small Internet donors, his campaign is still mostly funded in the most traditional of ways. Numerous readers taking offense at my characterization of Obama’s fundraising as dominated by “fat cats.” In light of new details on Obama’s fundraising which have become available, now would be a good time to revisit this issue.

I noted that that, by the end of June, Wall Street had already given Obama $9.5 million, that four out of his top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants, with Goldman Sachs at the top of the list. Even conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks was appalled: “Over the past few years, people from Goldman Sachs have assumed control over large parts of the federal government. Over the next few they might just take over the whole darn thing.”

The reader response was overwhelmingly negative. The debate was over which was more significant: the half of Obama’s money that came in small Internet contributions, or the half that came from big corporate money. I argued that:

adding a layer of small Internet donations (45% of Obama’s money) on top of all the traditional campaign money (55% of Obama’s money) does not change the game of politics and money. It just adds another layer to the same old cake. To really change the game, one would need to replace all that traditional money with small Internet donations. … Just think through the basics: if on one side you have over a million people giving you little donations that make up 45% of your budget, and on the other side you have a handful of people giving you big donations that make up 55% of your budget, whose telephone calls are you going to take?

So here we are with the world economy collapsing and the big question is exactly this: whose calls is Obama going to take? Because both sides are calling, big time. I don’t have to tell you who is winning so far.

I am just going to guess it is the Big Cats on Wall Street even as Obama and the Democrats are demonizing them in the press. How does he get them to stay quiet while he is doing that, I wonder? I’d say, follow the money, but apparently, I am more cynical than Ostertag is:

But I am more optimistic than I thought I would be at this point. The looting of the US Treasury has not gone as planned. Everything is spiraling out of control. And Americans are actually mad! Bankers are in tears (at least according to their congressional testimony). When Republican congressmen are calling for corporate execs to commit mass suicide, you know the ground has shifted.

Have things changed so dramatically that Obama will have room to dump his biggest campaign contributers (sic) overboard? That question will be answered in the coming weeks.

Now is not the time to be quiet. Now is the time to yell bloody murder. We will soon know whose call comes through the loudest.

Yes, the question will be answered in the coming weeks. My bet is that Obama will continue to rail against the very companies that helped him get into office, just like he did with the insurance companies. The Democrats will try and tie the Republicans to Wall Street, like they are currently doing with Senator Judd Gregg as he urges caution:

“We should not legislate based on anecdotal events,” Gregg said. “This is a big piece of legislation, we shouldn’t overreact.”

The reform bill, one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities, is awaiting passage by the Senate. Should it pass, the bill would have to be merged with the House’s version approved last year, then it would have passed again by both houses before Obama can sign it.

Ah, yes. The Reform Bill. You will NEVER believe what is in it. Essentially, the Congress is abdicating some of its oversight responsibility, and giving it – GIVING it – to the Executive Branch. Oh, you know I am not making this up:

(If the video doesn’t come up, click here.) Remember when we were all worried about crap like this happening with Bush?? Obama seems hellbent on amassing as much power as he possibly can, and unfortunately, this Democratic-heavy Congress is all too willing to hand it to him. So much for those pesky little checks and balances our founders thought were important enough to put into our Constitution. You know, the document the Congress, and the President, swore to uphold? Uh huh. That one. Well, the Democrats have decided not to bother with that whole democracy thing. Whatever…

I guess that’s some kind of reform – trying to change three branches of government to only two…