on ACORN in yesterday's LA Times. The hubub has died down enough
for people to read and evaluate other positions on the subject.
And, for kpfk listeners, I'll be on Sonali Kolhatkar's show, 8 AM today,
along with Joe Maizlish, one of the original draft and war 'Resistors,'
talking about our Sunday beach event at Arlington West. With a more
artistic sampling, the Get Lit Players and S. Pearl Sharp will be on
the Pocho Tower of Power, at 4 PM, 90.7 fm. Ron Kovic, too!
Ed
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091021_zooming_in_on_the_years_biggest_hoax/
Zooming In on the Year's Biggest Hoax
By Robert Scheer
Truthdig: October 20th, 2009
Who are these people? I am not referring to the pathetic parents of "Balloon
Boy," whose fake drama I have been unable to escape while on the treadmill
this week, thanks to my gym's insistence on tuning its flat-screen TVs to
Wolf Blitzer's nonstop self-parody.
The Colorado incident was significant only in the tawdriness of those who
perpetrated the made-for-TV scam and their allies in the mindless media who
covered this sham "reality" so relentlessly. But even so it was enough to
push aside most consideration of the true hoax reported last week with far
less fervor: the obscene rewards that Wall Street bankers bestowed upon
themselves for ripping off our economy.
The people I want to know more about are the superrich who expect to be
rewarded for their failures, like the folks at Goldman Sachs who will
receive $16.71 billion in bonuses-an average of $530,000 per employee-this
year after their company did as much as any to bring the world economy to
the brink of disaster.
"The Guys from Goldman Sachs" is what The New York Times once called them in
recognition of their chokehold on the federal government. Their power is
marked by the two treasury secretaries who led the fight to legally enable
and then reward Wall Street for its obscene excesses. Why wasn't there a CNN
stakeout at the homes of former Goldman-execs-turned-treasury-chiefs Robert
Rubin and Henry Paulson aimed at finding out how they feel about the almost
$7 billion profit that Goldman Sachs made in the last two quarters in the
wake of the government's bailout of the firm?
They were both deeply involved last fall, along with Rubin protégé and
current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then head of the New York Fed,
in saving Goldman as archrival Lehman Brothers was forced to go belly up. As
opposed to Lehman, Goldman was allowed to change its status and become a
commercial bank qualifying for Federal Reserve and TARP funding. Goldman
received $10 billion in immediate bailout funds, and we are supposed to be
grateful that the company has paid it back in return for an end to any
pretense of government control over its executive compensation. The
additional cool $12.9 billion that Goldman received from the government as a
pass-through from the bailout of AIG to cover Goldman's toxic paper is money
the investment bank has no intention of ever paying back.
The rationale for saving Goldman and the other too-big-to-fail usurers was
that the rescue would increase lending to businesses and consumers and thus
revive the economy. But Goldman made money last quarter by shunning such
loans and instead putting the government-guaranteed low-interest money it
now can borrow toward acquisitions and bond and stock trading. As The New
York Times reported: "Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are
making fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather than the
ho-hum business of lending people money."
Under the headline "Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth,"
Times reporter Graham Bowley detailed many of the enabling favors that the
government, under two presidents, extended to Goldman, like clearing the way
for the company to issue bonds guaranteed by the FDIC. "It may come as a
surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall
Street," the Times reported, "is not the banks but Washington. Many of the
steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial
system-reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with
taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institution
debts-helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth."
It should not come as a surprise to Timothy Geithner, who, as The Wall
Street Journal reported last week, talks to the honchos of Goldman more
often than to members of Congress ostensibly in charge of banking
legislation. Nor will it shock the lobbyists for Wall Street-augmented, as
The Nation reported last week, by the pro-Goldman efforts of former
Democratic congressman and faux populist Dick Gephardt-that the rich will
emerge richer from this deep recession in which so many Americans have lost
everything. The die is cast: People working in finance grabbed two-thirds of
the growth in GDP, with the rest of us scrambling for the other third.
Nor will the situation change anytime soon. The House Financial Services
Committee is in charge of writing new rules to protect consumers, but as the
respected Sunlight Foundation reports, 27 of the 71 members of that
committee receive at least one-fourth of their campaign funds from the
financial industry, with the rest of the committee members not far behind.
Now if we could get one of the banking lobbyists to float a duct-taped
flying saucer balloon, Wolf Blitzer might cover the real hoax.
***
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/25-1
GOP Nuts Throw ACORN From a Glass House
by Laura Flanders
Grit TV : September 25, 2009
Continuing the GOP's attack on the poor people's organizing group ACORN, the
House this month passed by a wide margin a provision that would bar ACORN
from receiving any federal funding. Every House Republican voted 'aye' as
well as 172 Democrats. Only 75 Democrats opposed it. Soon the Senate, which
has already -- by a 83 to 7 margin -- barred ACORN from receiving federal
housing grants, is considering its own complete ban measure.
Let's hope they enjoy their gloat and then get right back to business.
The legislation they passed in all their rush, you see, is written so
broadly that it just comes in very handy.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D of Florida) has already asked the Project on Government
Oversight (POGO) to find out which other contractors might be caught in the
ACORN net.
Abuse of federal funds -- Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are top of
the list, with 20 fraud cases between them. And where those military
contractors go, the cash for killers -- Blackwater can't be far behind. And
then there's Halliburton and the magically disappeared federal cash for
troop services and Iraq reconstruction.
Recipients of the $750 billion financial bailout program known as TARP are
bound to show up. Earlier this year, federal investigators said they had
opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations,
insider trading and other crimes.
If the GOP can get this hot and bothered over the $50 million ACORN's
supposed to have received from the federal government -- over the past 15
years -- I can hardly wait to see how outraged they'll be about the BILLIONS
received by banks in the blink of a brokers' eyelid.
Not to be left out, among the bankers, brokers, death merchants and liars,
let's not forget the child molesters...
Several faith based groups, recipients of federal grants, currently stand
accused of misspending that cash on covering up child molesting clergy.
To name just one: Catholic Charities -- in at least two cities Catholic
Charities stands accused of using federal funds to settle or cover up sex
abuse charges. But that didn't stop Catholic Charities from receiving a
federal government contract this August for $100 million to work with
victims of natural disasters.
This could all get very interesting very fast. I just can't wait. Lou Dobbs,
Glenn Beck. Who's going to be first with the outrage?
© 2009 Grit TV
Laura Flanders is the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on Free
Speech TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415) on cable (8 pm ET on Channel 67 in
Manhattan) and online daily at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com.
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