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All the president’s Goldman Sachs men

Sandhusker

Well-known member
All the president’s Goldman Sachs men
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

While President Obama assails the culture of greed and recklessness practiced by the men of Goldman Sachs, his administration is infested with them. The White House can no more disown Government Sachs than Da Boss-in-chief can disown Chicago politics.

Obama is headed to Wall Street on Thursday to demand “financial regulatory reform” — just as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil suit against Goldman Sachs for mortgage-related fraud. Question the timing? Darn tootin’. There are no coincidences in the perpetually orchestrated Age of O. Everyone from disgraced former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to analysts at the Brookings Institution and Barclays Capital to the GOP leadership and Rush Limbaugh has noted the reeking political opportunism in the air.

As the New York Post reported Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee immediately bought sponsored Internet ads on Google that direct web surfers who type in “Goldman Sachs SEC” to Obama’s fundraising site. “It’s time to hold the big banks accountable,” the money-grubbing DNC message bellows. But just like his crony capitalist predecessor George W. Bush, Obama has relied on Goldman Sachs and Wall Street power brokers to engineer massive government interventions to “rescue” failing businesses with the tax dollars of ordinary Americans.

While irony-challenged Democratic candidates like mob-linked banker Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois (who hopes to fill Obama’s old Senate seat) call on Republicans to return their fat-cat Goldman Sachs donations, the Democrats are silent on the $994,795 in Goldman Sachs campaign cash that Obama bagged. The class-warfare Dems are also mum on all the president’s Goldman Sachs men sitting in the catbird’s seat:



– Goldman Sachs partner Gary Gensler is Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission head. He was confirmed despite heated congressional grilling over his role, as Reuters described it, “as a high-level Treasury official in a 2000 law that exempted the $58 trillion credit default swap market from oversight. The financial instruments have been blamed for amplifying global financial turmoil.” Gensler said he was sorry — hey, it worked for tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner — and was quickly installed to guard the henhouse.

– Goldman Sachs kept White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on a $3,000 monthly retainer while he worked as Clinton’s chief fundraiser, as first reported by Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney. The financial titans threw in another $50,000 to become the Clinton primary campaign’s top funder. Emanuel received nearly $80,000 in cash from Goldman Sachs during his four terms in Congress — investments that have reaped untold rewards, as Emanuel assumed a leading role championing the trillion-dollar TARP banking bailout law.



– Former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson serves under Geithner as his top deputy and overseer of TARP bailout — $10 billion of which went to Goldman Sachs. Left-leaning government watchdog Melanie Sloan of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington responded: “It makes it appear that they are saying one thing and doing another.” Paul Blumenthal of the Sunlight Foundation noted that, while at Goldman Sachs, Patterson lobbied against executive pay limits that Obama had crusaded for as senator (before, that is, his administration carved out exemptions for AIG). While Patterson agreed to recuse himself on any Goldman Sachs-related issues or related policy concerns, Blumenthal wrote, it “still creates a serious conflict for Geithner, as Treasury is being partly managed by a former Goldman lobbyist. Geithner is also placed in a tough position considering that his chief of staff is limited in the areas in which he can work (supposedly).”



– Obama’s close hometown crony, campaign finance chief and senior adviser Penny Pritzker was head of Superior Bank of Chicago, a subprime specialist that went bust in 2001, leaving more than 1,400 people stripped of their savings after bank officials falsified profit reports. Pritzker’s lawyer at O’Melveny and Myers, Tom Donilon, is now Obama’s deputy national security adviser. He earned just shy of $4 million representing her and other high-profile meltdown clients including Goldman Sachs.

– White House National Economic Council head Larry Summers reaped nearly $2.8 million in speaking fees from many of the major financial institutions and government bailout recipients he now polices, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs. A single speech to Goldman Sachs in April 2008 brought in $135,000. Summers has prior experience negotiating government-sponsored bailouts that benefit private concerns. In 1995, he spearheaded a $40 billion Mexican peso bailout that bypassed Congress. Summers personally leaned on the International Monetary Fund to provide nearly $18 billion for the package. Summers’ boss, then Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, was former co-chairman of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs — the Mexican government’s investment banking firm of choice.

Rubin continues to mentor another former employee of his with regular visits and chats — Treasury Secretary Geithner, who was head of the New York Federal Reserve, which pushed bailed-out insurance conglomerate AIG to cover up sweetheart deals for investment banks that benefited, you guessed it, Goldman Sachs.

As Obama harangues Wall Street to clean up its house, all the president’s Goldman Sachs men have their feet on the coffee table at his.
 

don

Well-known member
don't forget paulson. he was chairman at goldman before his time in the bush admin. if you care to look any deeper than whatever article happens to pop up on a given morning you'd realize that goldman did with treasury what the packers do with usda. the us govt is so screwed. don't worry be happy you can't stop it now.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
don said:
don't forget paulson. he was chairman at goldman before his time in the bush admin. if you care to look any deeper than whatever article happens to pop up on a given morning you'd realize that goldman did with treasury what the packers do with usda. the us govt is so screwed. don't worry be happy you can't stop it now.

I'll agree with you on the packers/USDA analogy, and we won't be able to stop it with the current adminstration. MAYBE the next one...
 

don

Well-known member
who can you elect that will stop it? don't just name a name - it has to be someone who can get elected. caribou barbie would sell granny for a buck; course she couldn't get elected. do you think romney could stop it? lol. ron paul won't get elected. oh yeah glenn beck! he'd do it. laughing some more.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
don said:
who can you elect that will stop it? don't just name a name - it has to be someone who can get elected. caribou barbie would sell granny for a buck; course she couldn't get elected. do you think romney could stop it? lol. ron paul won't get elected. oh yeah glenn beck! he'd do it. laughing some more.

"Caribou Barbie" has already shown more spine than anybody in Washington that I know of when she purged her own party in Alaska. I don't know who would do it. I don't think Palin could get elected, which is a shame, but if somebody is looking for a platform other than this "Hope and Change" and "Transparancy and accountable government" BS that the gullible people bit on.......
 

don

Well-known member
so name an electable perso who would clean up the mess. you don't have any because your political system is so corrupted. stick a fork in it. the usa is busy imploding.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
don said:
so name an electable perso who would clean up the mess. you don't have any because your political system is so corrupted. stick a fork in it. the usa is busy imploding.

There was a time, not so long ago, when some on here called obama corrupt and don would say we were just being racist.

When articles were posted that showed the USA was "imploding", we were called "fearmongers", trying to stir up a revolution.

I think the shine has wore off for don, too.

don said:
your source is no proof that obama is following a leninist agenda. it is a slanted presentation trying to put an extreme motive to a liberal administration. but then that's your purpose - to weaken and destroy the united states by making social and economic conditions unbearable to the point of revolution. you and you kind may be successful but i sincerely hope not because there is a great deal of potential for good in the usa and i hope it is realized. a distorted view of american history will not make for a good future.

http://ranchers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38544&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=revolution&start=0

don said:
i thought he was supposed to be like hitler. would you racists make up your minds?
 

don

Well-known member
divert if you want. if you look back i also said obama was an empty suit. i also said that just because he was the first black president it didn't mean he would be a good one. now name somebody who can be elected who will govern any differently than what's been in the past. as fareed zakaria (sp) says, 'american govt is paralyzed by politics.' there won't be any changing it until the system completely fails.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
don said:
divert if you want. if you look back i also said obama was an empty suit. i also said that just because he was the first black president it didn't mean he would be a good one. now name somebody who can be elected who will govern any differently than what's been in the past. as fareed zakaria (sp) says, 'american govt is paralyzed by politics.' there won't be any changing it until the system completely fails.

Unfortunately I don't look at it as negatively as you or zakaria. It seems that obama is also with you and zakaria on this one. There is no one person that will change it. It will have to be a concerted effort.

But that does not mean that the whole system has to be "over burdened" and destroyed to rebuild it.

Getting back to basics would be a start, instead of mandating a Cloward-Piven like strategy, to bring on a complete collapse, so it can be re-built in the vision of progressives.

Some people seem ready to sacrifice and get back to basics, and it's those people that are being "demonized" as being "unpatriotic anti-government racist teabaggers extremists"
 

don

Well-known member
so who can be elected that will change things? the only way the tea party can have a positive influence is if they help the republicans nominate an effective electable candidate. try and name one who will change things.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
don said:
so who can be elected that will change things? the only way the tea party can have a positive influence is if they help the republicans nominate an effective electable candidate. try and name one who will change things.

Paul Ryan.
 

don

Well-known member
seems a little moderate for the tea party but they'll have to acknowledge reality or die. what is it about him that makes you think he can change washington politics? he (and others) will have to clean out a bunch of lobbyists for every interest under the sun and congress will fight him tooth and nail. i agree with what ron paul said to jesse ventura on larry king live when he said people should read history about how empires end and the ending of the american empire will be ugly.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
don said:
seems a little moderate for the tea party but they'll have to acknowledge reality or die. what is it about him that makes you think he can change washington politics? he (and others) will have to clean out a bunch of lobbyists for every interest under the sun and congress will fight him tooth and nail. i agree with what ron paul said to jesse ventura on larry king live when he said people should read history about how empires end and the ending of the american empire will be ugly.

I think by 2012 the Tea Party will be more moderate than you think. It is only the MSM and the far left (progressives) that are trying to pin the label of "extreme" on them. It started out with support from the more conservative, but seems to be gaining more and more support from the moderate right AND left.

What makes me think he can positively change DC politics?

First he has to be electable. And in my opinion, what makes you electable in 2012 differs greatly from what made obama electable in 2008. I also think that obama can considered one of the best things that has ever happened to the US, if the lessons are acted on.

I think in 2010 we are going to see the voters' let the Country know that it is time for constructive change. Not this change that would see the country destroyed, before it can be rebuilt. They are going to be willing to make the sacrifices that are needed.

By 2012, a good chunk of both Houses will be new faces.

Paul Ryan is one person with the experience, honesty and intelligence to explain those sacrifices and the long term benefits.


but...

Before any constructive change is possible, some other things have to fall in place, which I think are.


-a realization that the Country is bankrupt
-a Constitutional Crisis and a desire to have a Constitutional Conference.
-a willingness to look back, instead of forward. (back to basics that were successful in the past)


I'm not sure it will happen, but the timing and circumstances seem to be coming together.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Don, "..seems a little moderate for the tea party ..."

If you're implying that the Tea Party is radical, I would have to disagree. I don't think that accountable government and living within one's means is radical.
 

Steve

Well-known member
Don said:
seems a little moderate for the tea party but they'll have to acknowledge reality or die

with the TEA party supporting a fight in the primaries, unite in the general election policy.. they are accepting a huge dose of reality..

for those who have been to the rallies and meetings it is easy to see that they deal in reality..
 
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