Chris Whalen: Obama 'Overly Optimistic' On Bernanke Vote; Sources Say Confirmation 'Far From' Assured (VIDEO)
Chris Whalen just sent this note by email.
Steve, thought Bail readers might enjoy:
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Despite the confidence of Treasury Secretary Tim Geither, who is well known for his keen political instincts, the Bernanke nomination is far from a done deal.
"As of this morning, our contacts in the GOP leadership say that the White House is just shy of 50 votes in favor of the reappointment of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The positive media headlines on this count are being driven by a relentless, all weekend long push by the White House, including personal telephone calls from President Obama."
"There are still at least 10 more votes to be won before Bernanke’s nomination is ready for floor action and, even then, our sources in the Democratic leadership say that they do not want to bring the matter to the floor unless there are a couple of extra votes in the back pocket in case Senators who have indicated support for the nomination change their minds."
"The White House spin in the media today is “overly optimistic” according to our GOP sources, who say that one more public revelation regarding the Fed or Bernanke himself could kill the nomination."
"The poll numbers regarding Bernanke are “dreadful,” to quote one 20-year veteran of the Democratic leadership and the big concern by the Democrats remains another revolt by members of the left wing of the Democratic Party."
"We remain very cautious regarding the “Bernanke will be approved” drumbeat because the Obama White House has shown itself to be particularly incompetent when it comes to counting votes on Capitol Hill. Counting money, of course, is another matter."
-- Chris
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Video: Animal House Motivational Speech from Bluto (John Belushi) -- Begins at 1:20
Suggested by Mark McHugh
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SNL Video: For Belushi fans - His original audition tape for Saturday Night Live - 1975
Jan 25, 2010 at 7:27 PM
Reader Comments (30)
Did you say "over"?
Nothing is over until we decide it is!
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Hell no!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsmybQKpmTw&feature=PlayList&p=00A4CE3557F91856&index=14
Me, I'm going down swinging.....
The most infuriating part of this piece is that he explains the likely reasoning behind lifting the cap on GSE support -- so the US taxpayer can retire the 1.5 trillon in GSE debt and MBS that the Fed has been buying. All without any congressional oversight or approval. (Most of them don't even know what happened.)
http://hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc100125.htm
BTW, when in God's name is Obama going to see the light and replace Geithner with Chris Whalen?
Barry uses a teleprompter for a elementary school...come on now!! If Sarah or Dubya or Rudy did this, you would post it asap. Don't wait to see if Jon Liebowitz thinks it is crazy, go for it DB, post it.
REALLY.
I hadn't thought of it that way before. Yikes.
At this point, I am convinced that Obama is on a mission to destroy America.
Hint...Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said that Democrats had asked GOP leaders to measure support among Republicans. "We didn't think we'd even have to count," Stewart said.
The story gets good here...Obama and his goons are making some of the Repubs support Bernanke by giving them concerns over who the Dems would pick to replace him.
Oh well, why do they keep fighting when they are all on the same team. I don't get it DB. Lucky I have you to keep telling me they are the same. Have I thanked you lately. Thanks.
Did you ever wonder why when an airplane crashes in the desert there is a lot of wreckage debris but when it crashes into PA farmland or into the Pentagon there is no wreckage debris?
DB, what are they hiding from us?
]Fed Seeks to Block Release of Bank Bailout Secrets (Update1)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aS5frt8e2ltU
Demand from Congress a complete, unfettered audit of the Fed. Roll out the "FBI LINE - DO NOT CROSS" tape. Don't let Bernanke in the building until it's complete.
What rat out there buddies? What are you thinking? Are you thinking were a free county and the people can decide what's right or wrong? If so why did we give bankers record bonuses from taxpayers bailout money for going bankrupt?
Many thanks to Dubya, Cheney, Rummy, and the gang.
The story gets good here...Obama and his goons are making some of the Repubs support Bernanke by giving them concerns over who the Dems would pick to replace him.
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gobias...
good story...show me the source...
to counter your point...hey i LOVE what the repubs are doing on Bernanke (minus a few) but at the same time REPUBS are fighting any serious banking reform...do you get my point...?
and i posted the elementary school teleprompter video on the headlines page...
http://hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc100125.htm
How to spend $1.5 trillion without Congressional approval
"Ali Hassan al-Majid, known to the world as "Chemical Ali" after he ordered the gassing of thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja, has been hanged in Iraq.
Many thanks to Dubya, Cheney, Rummy, and the gang."
Where did they get the chemical weapons?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm
http://www.alipac.us/article4860.html
All opponents of the illegal, unconstitutional, and failed Federal Reserve system must now realize that this is the hour of action. It is time for every serious intelligent person to send two e-mails and place two phone calls to the Washington and local offices of their senators demanding that they stop Bernanke. Obama should also be warned that Bernanke is an insult to the American people. Those who have been complaining about the Fed for decades now have a real chance to do something about it. These chances are very rare, but this is the best one in many, many decades. Even Paul Adolph Volcker, who had been responsible for an obscene 22% prime rate three decades ago, had an easier time getting reconfirmed than Bernanke. Once Bernanke has been defeated, it will be time to secure the ouster of Treasury Secretary Geithner, the former head of the New York Fed and currently the most visible member of the entire Obama cabinet. The basic outlines of a criminal indictment for Geithner on tax fraud and securities fraud can be culled from virtually any daily newspaper. Geithner ought to be accompanied on his trip home by White House economic czar Larry Summers, the woman-hating former president of Harvard who managed to destroy about a third of the Harvard endowment as a result of his fanatical devotion to the riskiest of financial derivatives. This and more will be within our reach if Bernanke can be checkmated over the next week or two.
http://www.pushhamburger.com
The Fed created the [$1 trillion] reserves through emergency loans and a $1.7 trillion purchase program of mortgage-backed securities, federal agency and Treasury debt.
This is the Fed "printing" money. Loans to losers to turn around and say they have deposit s at the Fed when really the hucksters are insolvent. Furthermore, the corrupt Fed removed all the absolutely toxic $hit from these banksters' books who just paid themselves billions of dollars in bonuses! And the taxpayer is now the new owner of the WORLD'S LARGEST REAL ESTATE CESSPOOL!
The Fed unconstitutionally transferred billions of toxic $hit onto the backs of American taxpayers, bailed out these bankrupt fools, and then let them plunder Americans for billion in bonuses!!! How God damn corrupt and fucked up does it get my fellow Americans? This is a high crime perpetrated against the American people and the Constitution and all these fucks in govt let it happen! After taking an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution, they've violated it's very sanctity! This is punishable by death. It's treason and no wonder they're conspiring to cover it all up and deceive the American citizens.
http://www.pushhamburger.com
LOL
The Obama Brand: Feel Good While Overlords Loot the Treasury and Launch Imperial Wars
Brand Obama makes us hopeful. We like our president and we believe he's like us. But we're being duped into doing a lot of things that are not in our interest.
http://www.alternet.org/media/145358/the_obama_brand%3A_feel_good_while_overlords_loot_the_treasury_and_launch_imperial_wars
The Supreme Court Just Handed Anyone, Including bin Laden or the Chinese Govt., Control of Our Democracy
http://www.alternet.org/news/145354/the_supreme_court_just_handed_anyone%2C_including_bin_laden_or_the_chinese_govt.%2C_control_of_our_democracy
Why no Revolt leader not emerging in USA republic so far?hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Bernanke Tells Obama Banks Need More Money
The International Herald Tribune
Julia Werdigier and Edmund L. Andrews
January 13, 2009
LONDON: The chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, warned here Tuesday that the highly unpopular job of using taxpayer money to bail out financial institutions in the United States and other countries was far from over.
* economic crisis Bernanke Tells Obama Banks Need More Money
One day after President-elect Barack Obama asked Congress to free up the second half of the money for the Treasury Department’s $700 billion financial rescue program, Bernanke cautioned that banks and other lending institutions were still not functioning properly and would probably need additional money.
“More capital injections and guarantees may become necessary to ensure stability and the normalization of credit markets,” Bernanke said during a speech at the London School of Economics. Though the Fed chairman acknowledged that people in many countries were “understandably concerned” about pumping government money into the financial industry while often turning a cold shoulder to other sectors, he defended the effort as unpleasant but necessary.
“This disparate treatment, unappealing as it is, appears unavoidable,” Bernanke said. “Our economic system is critically dependent on the free flow of credit, and the consequences for the broader economy of financial instability are thus powerful and quickly felt.”
http://www.pushhamburger.com
by FireDogLake's Bmaz
Audacity To Hope
Change We Can Believe In
Rule of Law
Accountability
Freedom From Lobbyists and Special Interests
Privacy
Harm From Illegal Surveillance
Constitutional Scholar
Transparency
Predatory Business Practices
Closing Guantanamo
Withdrawing From Iraq and Afghanistan
These are but some of the major buzzwords, issues and concepts Barack Obama based his candidacy and campaign on to convince the American electorate to sweep him in to office. Mr. Obama, however, has gone significantly in the opposite direction on each and every one since taking office. As Frank Rich noted, there is a growing "suspicion that Obama's brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger's public image - a marketing scam..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/02-6
My last rant here...sorry for the repeat
this day in USA history again:
Prepare fo survival Fellow Americans
FELLOW AMERICANS...........REVOLT ONLY SOLUTION LEFT
Top Economists - Another Economic Disaster Coming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYvUSw51QKg
HOME GROWN WALL STREET BANKER FONANCIAL ALQAEDA
WORKING CLASS MUST REVOLT NOW.....STOP ALL PAYMENTS TO ALQAEDA
STARVE THE BEAST NOW=NON VIOLENT REVOLT
WE MUST BAIL OURSELVES OUT NOW
seekanddestroy, we are already paying higher rates to the banks. These banks that lost a ton of cash jacked up rates on credit cards and other loans, then dropped interested on CD's and Savings. That is one reason they made money last year. It don't matter what the gov does in the form of new taxes, when ever a bank needs money they are going to bleed it from the people who do business with them.
This is why:
$4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writerDecember 20, 2009: 7:37 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Here's a new way to think about the U.S. government's epic borrowing: More than half of the $9 trillion in debt that Uncle Sam is expected to build up over the next decade will be interest.
More than half. In fact, $4.8 trillion.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/19/news/economy/debt_interest/index.htm?postversion=2009122007
"Ken, your posts always look bot posts to me. Either you are a badly written computer program posting mostly nonsense or you have the personality of a chair. I am convinced your posts are computer programed."
Then:
" Great post Ken, keep up the good work"
Question:
Am I witnessing sarcasm here or simply some Obamaesque flip-flopping?
:-)
PS--We can converse in French if you like--it's one of the languages I speak. Anyway, the regulars don't use those things over there, so Gillette can forget it. As for you, you'd better stick with Americans. Try presbyterians, too. They're very tolerant.
Awesome.