Tag: Tarp
A Letter to Joe Sestak
The following was sent to me by email. It is a letter that a true American Patriot sent to Congressman Joe Sestak.
Hat tip Rocco
Dear Joe,
The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 – you have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.
Social Security was established in 1935 – you have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938 – you have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke.
The “War on Poverty” started in 1964 – you have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor”; it hasn’t worked and our entire country is broke.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 – you’ve had 44 years to get it right; they are broke.
Freddie Mac was established in 1970 – you have had 39 years to get it right; it is broke.
Trillions of dollars were spent in the massive political payoffs called TARP, the “Stimulus”, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009… none show any signs of working, although ACORN appears to have found a new bitch: the American taxpayer.
Cash for Clunkers” was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009! It took good dependable cars (that were the best some people could afford) and replaced them with high-priced and less-affordable cars, mostly Japanese. A good percentage of the profits went out of the country. And the American taxpayers take the hit for Congress’ generosity in burning three billion more of our dollars on failed experiments.
So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that “services” you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system?
20% of our entire economy?
Is this anyway to run the Navy? No! What makes you think it’s good for the Country? Is this what you signed on for this tour of duty? At least have the decency to include members of congress in whatever plan you choose.
The People’s Genie Is out of the Bottle
Did Obama and his puppet masters think that the American people were just going to sit back while he rammed his radical agenda through?
We Americans don’t want our lives turned on their heads. We don’t want things fixed that aren’t broke.
It’s a new day and we need to throw all of the bums out and start over from scratch using the original Constitution as our guide.
Obama and Democrat Congressional leaders uncorked the bottle and the peoples’ Genie is out.
He’s not happy, this Genie. In normal times, he sits there quietly inside the bottle. Sometimes watching. Mostly not. He finds politics boring, if not disgusting.
He sat and watched in silence as the TARP bill passed. Told the sky was falling, he looked up and saw it wasn’t. But he shrugged, trusting the bipartisan nature of the effort. Then, as TARP rolled out, he stood up. The bailouts plowed a furrow across his forehead; his eyebrows lowered; his gaze intensified. But he stayed inside the bottle.
Along came the Stimulus Bill. Or, in the language of the big spenders, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Genie smelled the bacon through the glass bottle. He heard the squeals coming next from the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009. Another stampede of pigs.
Inside the bottle, the Genie’s leaned forward, pressing his hands and nose flat against the glass. As he watched banks and car companies yield to government control, his jaw slid up. His lips pressed tight. His breathing shortened. But he stayed inside the bottle.
In his peripheral vision he saw a dancing troupe dressed like Cossacks enter the side door of the White House and disappear within. The Czars had come. The Genie watched, and wondered.
Events outside the bottle picked up speed. More crisis talk was in the air. He checked the sky again. Still no signs of a falling.
Then, ever heavier and more complicated legislative tomes rolled out of Congress in carriages drawn by hubris and arrogance. Cap & Trade and Healthcare Reform. Their long official titles no longer impressed the Genie. But their huge price tags did. As did the mounting federal budget deficit for 2009. Now at $1.84 trillion, with more to come.
By this time, the Genie was rocking his bottle back-and-forth. He tried and failed to get the big spenders’ attention. His mouth moved, but no sound escaped his bottle, at least in the ears of the big spenders and the old news media, becoming ever more irrelevant with each news cycle as they peddle into obscurity.
The people felt powerless because they were. They had no voice that carried. The big spenders pretended to listen, but then condescendingly told the people that everything happening was for their own good. It was meant to be, they said. Doing nothing, they said, is worse.
When the people protested, they were called rightwing extremists, disruptive malcontents, organized mobs, Nazis brown shirts, and other names which they are not. In fact, they’re average American citizens in a nation where nothing is average about them. On the planet, they are the most extraordinary of citizens.
Calling the people names was the last straw. The Genie tipped the bottle over, put his feet against the cork, and kick his way out. Beware of an uncorked Genie.
As this happened, the people started coming to town hall meetings, meant mostly to convince them to go-along to get-along. They held the heavy healthcare bill in their hands. Dog-eared from having been read.
The big spenders were shocked to learn that the people had taken time to do what they, the professional legislators, had not done – they’d read the bill! The people came armed with enlightened questions, reasoned arguments, and impassioned opinions. All things the big spenders lacked. In some cases, numbers were handed out at the entry door to qualify and order those who could speak. Then, one after the other, questioners asked clear, targeted questions. Sharpshooters picked at random. Remarkable.
The people stood, a furrow plowed across their foreheads. Their eyebrows lowered. Their chins up, lips pressed tight, gaze intensified. The Genie was out. When the big spenders told them that their reading of the bill was incorrect, the people found their voice. And, though some quivered with nervousness, they pushed against the glass. This time their voice was most definitely heard.
Obama and the Democrat Congressional leadership let the Genie out of the bottle. It was an unintended consequence of their crass and heavy-handed methods of leadership. They forgot, if they ever knew, that Americans can be led, but they cannot be herded.
Obama and Friends though it possible to ride roughshod over the Genie’s people. They remembered the swooning crowds seduced by the oratorical skills of their leader. They assumed his charisma would carry the day, again. The people would fold and comply, even if they might not commit. And, for those who would not fold easily, there was always the muscle mustered from Obama’s acolytes and allies. There was always the hype served up on demand by the old media. There was always the cumulative ridicule and name-calling spit from the lips of their Party leaders. These things would deflect the people’s skepticism and temper their anger. So they thought.
They were wrong. All these things did was make the people angrier and harden their determination to be heard, and more – to be heeded.
One young woman at a town hall meeting said that, for the first time in her life, she was taking politics seriously because so much is at stake. Her freedoms mostly. Her children’s future, too. She said the effort to force the healthcare bill on the people “had awakened a sleeping giant.” She could have ended her sentence with the words Admiral Isoraku Yamamoto spoke after the Japanese attacked on Pearl Harbor: “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
We are watching each other stand up in town hall meetings and face their representatives. Those politicians with the courage to attend anyway. We watch live, and we watch on that most sensational and powerful new medium of the web: U-Tube. The peoples’ articulate and courageous statements procreate exponentially, multiplying like amoebas on steroids, as we feed on the resolve of others. A resolve only terrible to those who would silence dissent. Wonderful to the rest of us.
So the Genie is out of the bottle. And it’ll be a good while before he thinks it safe to crawl back in.
Glenn Beck on the $134 Billion U.S. Bond Mystery In Italy
Fox News is the only “mainstream” US news outlet to be interested in the story of the $134.5 billion in bonds that were seized in Italy.
Italian police arrest 2 Japanese men smuggling $134 billion in U.S. bonds.
CEO Says Government Pressured Bank Of America To Buy Merrill Lynch
House lawmakers today accused federal regulators of a gross misuse of power in orchestrating a “shotgun wedding” between Bank of America Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. that cost U.S. taxpayers $20 billion.
They also took aim at Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis, questioning whether he played dumb last fall as Merrill’s financial losses mounted and threatened not to go through with the merger to squeeze money from the government.
“Why did a private business deal announced in September and approved by shareholders in December — with no mention of government assistance — end up costing taxpayers $20 billion in January?” asked Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The panel has been investigating the deal, including whether federal officials pressured Lewis and urged him to keep quiet about Merrill Lynch’s financial problems. Not divulging that information would have violated Lewis’ fiduciary duty to the bank’s shareholders.
In testimony before the committee, Lewis said publicly for the first time that his job was threatened after he expressed second thoughts about the merger. Lewis said then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and federal regulators made clear that if the bank reneged on its promise they would force his ouster and that of board members at the bank.
“What gave me concern is that they gave that threat to a bank in good standing,” Lewis told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “So it showed the seriousness with which they thought that we should not” back out.
Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also pledged government aid to Bank of America to help absorb the losses, Lewis said.
Bank of America ultimately received $45 billion from the government’s bank bailout program, $20 billion of which was tied to its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
Lewis said he was never asked by Paulson or Bernanke to withhold information from his shareholders. However, Lewis said Paulson told him in a telephone call that the government was reluctant to put the terms of the deal in writing because it would have prompted public disclosure.
The Federal Reserve declined to comment on Lewis’ testimony.
A spokeswoman for Paulson has said the former Treasury secretary felt a letter would have been too vague to help Bank of America and only served to rattle markets by creating more questions than answers. She said questions about disclosures by the bank were left up to the Bank of America.
Towns said he plans to invite Bernanke and Paulson to testify at a later hearing.
Lawmakers on the committee said they were troubled by Lewis’ testimony as well as internal Fed documents related to the deal.
In one e-mail, Bernanke said he thought Lewis’ threat to pull out of the deal was a “bargaining chip” and “we do not see it as a very likely scenario at all.”
Other e-mails by federal analysts suggested they thought it suspect that Lewis claimed to be surprised by Merrill’s losses given the clear signs of a deteriorating economy.
An employee at the Richmond Federal Reserve said Bernanke had made it clear that if Bank of America backed out and needed financial assistance, “management is gone.”
Towns and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the committee’s top Republican, said the merger was an obvious “shotgun wedding” that came at the expense of the taxpayer.
However, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said he thought Lewis was the one who was pressuring the government.
“There’s been a misconception here that the government put a gun to the head of Bank of America, when it’s quite possible that it was the Bank of America that put a gun to the head of the Fed by threatening” to back out, Kucinich said.
Lewis said he did nothing wrong. In the end, the decision to go ahead with the acquisition — with the promise of government support — was in everyone’s best interest, he testified. “This course made sense for Bank of America and its shareholders, and made sense for the stability of the markets,” he said. “We viewed those two interests as consistent.”
Just a few weeks after the deal was completed, Bank of America’s fourth-quarter earnings report showed the hit taken by its balance sheet because of the Merrill Lynch transaction, which made Lewis the target of shareholder anger.
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