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The Obama Watch
The War on Watchdogs
Inspectors general fight for independence, while Obama brings the “Chicago Way” to Washington.
HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN Rep. Edolphus Towns was clearly angered to learn that the Treasury Department had no idea what financial institutions were doing with taxpayer money they got from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $789 billion Wall Street bailout rushed through Congress in October 2008 amid panicky talk of a global economic meltdown.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s department had “taken the position that it will not even ask TARP recipients what they are doing with the taxpayers’ money,” the nine-term Democrat from Brooklyn said at a July 21 hearing of the committee. “In short, the taxpayers now have a $700 billion spending program that’s being run under the philosophy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’”
The chairman’s fellow Democrat, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, was similarly outraged.
“For us to get past this economic situation that we find ourselves in, the public has to believe that we’re doing the right thing,” Cummings said. “If we can’t show them that we are doing the right thing with their money, we’re going to have problems.”
This sudden outburst of Democratic concern about fiscal responsibility was caused by the quarterly report issued a day earlier by “SIGTARP” Neil Barofsky, the special investigator general assigned to watchdog the banking bailout bonanza. By mid-July, Barofsky had already launched 35 separate criminal and civil investigations involving alleged misuse of TARP funds, and his report disclosed that Geithner wasn’t even requiring the beneficiaries of the program to submit itemized accounts of where the money was going. So far as anyone at Treasury knew, American taxpayers were footing the bill to provide lingerie and jewelry for the mistresses of hedge-fund executives.
Barofsky’s report landed like a bombshell on Capitol Hill amid a
growing mood of bipartisan indignation fueled by evidence that the
main result of the TARP bailout was to pad the bottom line of giant
Wall Street firms. A week earlier, Goldman Sachs had reported
record second-quarter profits of $3.4 billion, scarcely nine months
after taking $10 billion in bailout money at the height of last
fall’s hysteria about a worldwide financial apocalypse. News of the
earnings windfall at Goldman Sachs sparked a two-week stock market
surge that saw the Dow Jones Industrial
Average gain more than 800 points, but it also contrasted starkly
with projections of double- digit unemployment and rising home
foreclosures. Clearly, the mood was ripe for one of those recurrent
populist epochs that erupt whenever the ordinary American on Main
Street gets the idea that fat cats on Wall Street are using their
leverage in Washington to perpetrate a swindle.
And here was SIGTARP, testifying to a congressional committee that the Treasury Department was asleep at the switch. Chairman Towns railed, “Earnings at the largest banks and the bank holding companies such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are up, yet lending remains down. It is unacceptable that profits go up, while lending goes down. The taxpayers have invested very large amounts of money in these banks, but what have we gotten in return?”
The committee’s ranking Republican, California Rep. Darrell Issa, compared Geithner’s refusal to impose transparency requirements to disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff’s assurances to the investors he bilked for millions: “Both Bernie Madoff and Treasury are saying ‘just trust me’ without showing us the books.”
SIGTARP demonstrated how a watchdog can bite, and the July hearing drew new attention to evidence that the Obama administration is trying to blind, muzzle, or neuter inspectors general like Barofsky, whose job is to expose “waste, fraud and abuse” in government agencies.
A month before Barofsky’s committee testimony, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had sent a letter to Geithner, asking about “a dispute over certain Treasury documents that were being withheld from SIGTARP auditors on a specious claim of attorney-client privilege.” Grassley’s letter went on to say that “this disagreement then escalated into broader questions about whether SIGTARP is subject to your direct supervision and direction.” The fight to maintain the independence of IGs, to protect their status as watchdogs, not lapdogs, is emerging as one of the most important early battles of the Obama era.
LESS THAN SIX WEEKS BEFORE the Barofsky hearing, on Wednesday, June 10, Gerald Walpin was trying to take a nap in his car while his wife drove north on the New York Thruway en route to a judicial conference in Bolton Lake, New York. Walpin, 77, was the inspector general assigned to watchdog the federal AmeriCorps volunteer program. His nap was disturbed when his cell phone rang and the IG found himself talking to Norman Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform. Eisen presented Walpin with a choice: resign or be fired. And the IG had exactly one hour to make that decision.
When Walpin asked the motive for this ultimatum, he says the White House lawyer told him that President Obama had decided it was “time to move on” and that the president wanted to have “someone else in that position.” This was shocking enough, but doubly shocking considering that only a year earlier, Obama had cosponsored a bill that required 30 days’ notice to Congress before an IG could be terminated.
The White House ultimatum to Walpin-who has suggested his firing was provoked by his investigation of a charity founded by one of Obama’s Democratic allies, Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson-was the first shot fired in what soon began to look like a pattern of pressure against inspectors general.
Walpin’s plight immediately came to the attention of Sen. Grassley, widely known as the congressional patron saint of IGs and other government whistle-blowers. The day after Eisen’s call to Walpin, Grassley sent a letter to the president, saying that he was “deeply troubled” by the quit-or-be-fired ultimatum. He noted that Walpin had “identified millions of dollars in Americorps funds either wasted outright or spent in violation of established guidelines,” and said, “In other words, it appears he has been doing his job.”
In doing his job, however, Walpin had unearthed the misappropriation of hundreds of thousands of dollars of AmeriCorps grants to Johnson’s St. HOPE Academy. According to the Associated Press, Walpin discovered that Johnson-a former NBA star elected mayor of California’s capital city last year in a campaign consciously modeled on Obama’s-had used AmeriCorps funding “to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car.”
About the Author
Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (13) | Leave a comment
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Alan Brooks| 9.14.09 @ 4:13PM
"The fight to maintain the independence of IGs, to protect their status as watchdogs, not lapdogs, is emerging as one of the most important early battles of the Obama era."
The battle was lost some time ago. Bush 41 blew it, he had the choice of turning away from lapdogs and to watchdogs; yet as he himself was one of the former, he chose to turn away from the latter.
Saddest choice in memory; the cold War was ending and GHW Bush chose lapdogs such... well, you remember the people Bush 41 hired. Sununu was probably the best of the worst.
20 later, we're reaping what the principal destroyer of Reagan's legacy sowed.
Sins of the father.
christopher witt diamant | 9.16.09 @ 2:21PM
In yet more Orwellian "doublespeak" we have those Neo-Nazis like Rush Limbaugh and the writers on this e-zine once again rising in their Shadown of Hitlerism-styled lies and civil disruption that brings to mind nothing less than the tactics once used so lovingly by Hitler and his axis bound friends who destroyed Germany by coming to power in an economic crisis.
This crisis brought about by Korporate Facist America corresponds easily to the Mussolinic version of the Right Wing; for those with short memories; not the left as some have said.
In looking at the Republikan Washington Times using the terminology of "Euthanasia" and "Death Lists" as bringing to life that discarnate shadow of Nazi Germeny in the rise of Hitler we now have a nwspaper which is supposed to stand as a Minister of the Free Press in America using what the Supreme Court might define as Unconstitutional Tactics in bringing to mummified life the forces in those days of Nazi Germany in which protest was silenced and dissent crushed; as the Free Voice of the People was strangled in it's own Town Halls by goons and shouters who took over with well funded right-wing backers: like now.
The Fall of the Reich: the End of Washington Times
The Hour of Temptation.....
This Last Day maywell seemingly prove to be one of increasing regret for Rev. Moon and his minions.
The fact that Corporate America is now trying to install it's own "Reich" to replace the close Bush-Moon syndicate shows us how close we are to a "brown shirts" to beat down the middle class with "Mediscare" for the old and sick and Orwellian Doublespeak to confuse the young and politically naive shows we have reached a nadir in American politics: the rise of Corporate Facism and religious "ends justifies the means" Pied Piperism going back to the rise of Hitler.
Don't forget: Hitler's enemies were all branded as "Socialists" and "Communists" whenever they dared speak out against his racism and hatred of those who dared oppose him and his Right Wing backers; all rich industrialists and those in bed with Cheney-style military interests: like now.
Now the enemy of Corporate America ( this entity of "economic facism" so well delineated by C.S. Lewis in the "Screwtape Letters" ) is the Poor souls of our Nation being attacked for having had the temerity to vote for a Black Christian Champion and one who knowingly stands as our President on the 430 year foundation of the suffering or the "dues" the Black Christian Race paid in their 430 years in the West.
That they suffered as Israel suffered once in Egypt for 430 years as their dues recalls the Slavery the Jews once suffered in Egypt long ago; so well seen in the work of Taylor Branch in his two monumental books "Parting the Waters" and "Pillar of Fire".
Barack Obama stands as our Messiah on the National level as Sun Myung Moon is well aware of: but yet he has not offered to help the man God chose to have him unify Korea with the Divine support Rev. Moon could have brought to America to bring the Foundation to a new earth to build the Kingdom of God.
This could have easily happened through the wise reading and ensuing freedom granted in the hidden power and promise of our Sacred Constitution itself if Rev. Moon had not set out to destroy the Democratic process and subvert the Second Israel by setting up Korea as the Third Israel to replace us: which I stopped as the least in the Kingdom of Heaven with the help of my Father's servant John.
As with this "David" Barack Obama represents we now have Rev. Moon as our fallen "Saul" now trying to kill the representative "Black Messiah" who was set up on the foundation of our own Black Moses Servant King; as Aaron Presley was his White Brother whose "Voice" brought together the "white north: and the "black south"; and all in a way the Racist white South and the Free Black North hardly guessed would one day happen in our own lifetimes.
As My Generation which began the internal Exodus from our invisible but racially apparent Egypt it is they who marched with Servant King and crossed the racial line by responding to the black southern Voice of Prince Aaron Presley who are much different than those Koreans who disdained the Rev. Martin King as our Moses with his Aaron: and instead let he who could have stood for the yellow race as our "Joshua" Rev. Moon.
The Koreans Rev. Moon brainwashed in the KCIA simply abandoned God's own cause in the Internal Providence of America: instead Rev. Moon railed against racism in America that he encountered when he came here in 1945 who yet never walked a step with Rev. King or sent his followers to be "Freedom Riders"to bring racial justice to America as the Second Israel.
Rev. Moon decided our invisible "Tabernacle" as the Manchild of Israel that My Generation really is would be best replaced by Korea's children of the Korean War that we American's fought and died for. He forgot us; and exalted himself.
The Rise of Corporate Facism: the Shadow of Hitler and Rev. Moon's Bush wack of My Generation: the untold story of the "Jacob" of Korea.
People forget how Jacob once "stole" the Blessing from Esau; but not Sun Myung Moon: he patterened his entire strategy in America to steal this very blessing from the Children of the Resurrection: and let us see how!
He married all those who were "not to marry: nor be given in marriage" so they could be eligible for the Resurrection from the dead and the inheriting of eternal life. This Rev. Moon decided to destroy by marrying as many of My generation as possible; too bad for them if they did not read their own Bible's!
The Last Day of Rev. Moon thus now emerges: going from the "Faithful and Wise Steward" written of in Matthew and Luke he was to have been and instead becoming the "Evil Servant" of the Gospel by failing to wait for the Return of the Lord as he was instructed by my Father's servant John.
It is now that the problem of the fall of Rev. Moon that is bringing to bear the powers that aree enshrined in the "Scarlet Beast" of chapter 17 of the Revelation of St. John the Divine: which I have revealed in my soon to be published book that is Red China?
Indeed the Son of Perdition who is Osama bin Laden the Antichrist has the spirit of the Scarlet Beast who is the yellow race in it's countless "Red Flags" of warning we in the West have long ignored. The spirit of the Antichrist which lives in the Marxist yellow race under the sway of Death has now had it's own avatar Rev. Moon fall to this power himself by his covenant with Kim Il Sing and then his son Kim Jong Il; as the symbolic Son of the Devil as of his own source of hatred and violence against the Lamb.
Who embodies in the flesh with his armies the one who now fights against Justice and Freedom from Oppression by the Forces behind the Terrorism now being uprooted bloody inch by inch from the people of Gog and Magog: Iraq and Iran; respectively???
The Antichrist: Osama bin Laden; the one who Rev. Moon now unwittingly has sided with by opposing out Black Messiah Barack Obama on the National Level in the 430 Foundation of Salvation My Generation set up.
He knows not what he does; I say this in all sorrow; and to his own shame.
That Adolf Hitler rose in a depresion is an historical fact; yet can beatings of our citizens as targeted town hall liberals and reform health care supporters be far off?
And why would Sun Myung Moon be setting his newspaper to mouth the racist hatred of the Nazis and their master who served the Beast as the new weapon against our Nation and our new President trying to take care of it's sick and poor citizens?
Who does this is not a Christian in the usual sense of clothing the naked or healing the sick; of feeding the poor or helping those incarcerated for one tragic reason or another; usuually for the crime of being poor and powerless on the Street of Babylon which is worse than Hell in the richest Nation on Earth.
And now: the shadow of Hitler from Rev. Moon: this will probably lead to his complete spiritual death in a few short weeks: I know that My Generation's own Righteous Father will step in to defeat the Right Wing in their steady rise in the power of the still-living Shadow of Hitler and their friends of the growing Korporate Facism in it's Economic salvation and help from the Scarlet Beast of Red China as it carries the Harlot who is Capitalism's Market on it's back: a Capitalist Marxism with a new Economic Feudalism never before even dreamed of when a corrupt Marxist government and it's State-owned businesses are united in Commerce against their own people: this is but the Shadow and Image of the Scarlet Beast; the Fallen Nature in it's global form; back again from the Axis as now Red China unmasked as the Scarlet Beast climbs out of the Abyss seen in chapter 17 of the Revelation of St. John the Divine.
The Scarlet Beast that John the Divine saw lives and moves in the Wilderness of Capitalism; the world of Materialism; both economic and scientific: the spirit of the Antichrist: Red China; with that fourth portion of the earth signified as the Yellow Race under the sway of Death with India as the Hell on Earth the throne of Death really is.
People forget the 300 million untouchable's in India who live a life that is more death than life; thus we have the Heloo on earth India supports as it carves out it;s Korporate share of the Global Market of the Harlot of Capitalism the Kingdom of God will replace with Love where now we have only money; the doomed system of things that will fall even as the Crystalized Caste Cociety India upholds as the Scepter of Mammon will be broken as the Vine of the Earth falls.
India and China supporting spirititually Death and Hell shows we now have their final rise and coming fall with Rev. Moon as the fallen "first helper" the Hopi prophets pointed out was to help but might also betray the Messiah at his return; the one they called the "first helper" of the Pahana or "White Brother of Quetzacoatl".
This indeedwas Rev. Moon as being the emissary of the Yellow Race the Hopi call the "Elder Brother".
Nut My Generation's "second helper" the Hopi prophesied of is my Father's servant John: the Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is the emergence of My Generation as the Tabernacle seen as that Child in His Name of Love that has now come in Our Day as in the Name of Christ Jesus.
Rev. Moon missed his chance to become the Messiah by Shepherding My Nation when the Light of Love was seen as in the Name of "Day Light" that is the Name of "Christ Jesus" by which "a little child" in the Name of Love as the name of God Almighty was to have led them and then the world to the New Heaven and New Earth: this is what Rev. Moon snuffed out in his strategy for global domination.
And of the Global Messiah Rev. Moon abandoned? That is My Generation itself as rising to the status of the Cosmic Son of Man itself; as "Caught up to God; and to His Throne".
And who can Stand? It even seems that God Himself will have to stop the Right Wing from selling America down the drain to punish it for electing a REAL President: one with a Heart and a Mind: something Korporate Republikan Neo-Nazism fears greatly; and for good reason: they are siding with Rev. Moon as unwitting pawns in their own destruction in this Last Day.
The fall of the Right Wing when Rev. Moon gave millions to Pat Robertson and other hate-mongers has now decided their own coming fate in that they would play the "dog in the manger" for all the uninsured in America as a way of sticking their finger in the eye of Barack Obama.
Have they come up with anything to help the poor and uninsured in America? Then let me hear differently: let me see what the Republikcan "alternative" is: ah, here it is: nada!!! What a surprise!
The Republican alternative is zero; so it is now a forgone conclusion that nothing can stop the Lobby for the Health Care System except a popular uprising of the Idealistic generation that fell once but will now rise to bring the Kingdom of God to it's fruition starting here in God's Country.
The Rich have decided that nothing is once again to be done for the Poor in this Richest Nation on Earth that is America; but seemingly have planned plenty more and Never-ending Korporate welfare for them.
Spite and Revenge against America for electing someone they seemingly hate with every fibre of their being: polite smiles notwithstanding. Under attack is the US: the US being "US" or our Nation itself; if that is not too gramatically awkward.
Yet with Sun Myung Moon in the fray the dynamic shifts to one of the Upper Class and that Rulers who would sell the poor for a "pair of shoes". Red Shoes for the Scarlet beast; it seems, for a dance of Death untile Red China "makes it's move"; and it will; never fear.
I have only the Truth: and the Second Helper: my Father's servant John is the Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet it seems I stand as little more than a feeble Quixote; feeble; but as David; against a Goliath known as the GOP; and our Saul; one fallen Sun Myung Moon; the Mighty who have fallen.
I fear the worst has yet to come to pass: but I know that the Word of God itself will prevail; even for our fallen "Faithful and Wise Steward" who now stands with the Yellow Race as that "Evil Servant" of the Scarlet Beast of Revelation: Red China; carrying the "Harlot" of "free market" Capitalism on it's back: just as it was written by my Father's servant John 2000 years ago: and has come to pass; the Capitalist form of Marxism in it's last and most destructive form: carrying the Capitalist Market almost singlehandedly: yet only Hell is it's goal and end..
As the Third Israel it is Rev. Moon for his beloved Korea who tried to "steal" our "land" when he mixed the soil of Korea with the land of all 50 States here in the US, which no one knew about until too late.
That America is the Second Israel can be seen by the fact that in Israel the king was also the head of the army; which is why we have "Camp David" in the first place: and "Uncle Sam" refers to the prophet "Samuel" whose name means "the Name of God"; as Samuel the Prophet of the Nazarenes was he who anointed David as the King and Light of Irsael. Should we not be in arms!???
Or should we rise up and sue Rev. Moon to "marry" the Widow of Israel he "left" at the "Altar" of our Land itself when he turned his back on us and married a Korean woman instead?
It was the Black Christian Woman Rev. Moon should have married in 1960 who symbolizes Sheba; the Mythic "queen of the South" who symbolizes the "SOUL" of America; and a lot of the "backbone" as well; truth be known.
The Mark of the beast then is "hypocrisy"; to appear as what one isn't; the beast which "is and is not" as it were; by the saying and insistence upon one thing and the doing of another; as Rochefoucauld once said: "Hypocrisy is the Homage that Vice pays to Virtue".
Let us pray for our Nation and for the Repentance of Rev. Moon by which I and my Father's servant John could indeed save him.
tailgunner| 6.24.10 @ 2:03PM
Reverend Jeremiah Wright!!
How in the hell are you doing, pal?
curtice| 6.26.10 @ 2:22AM
What a bunch of dis-jointed, convoluted nonsense. How can such an articulate person be so moronic.
mark| 6.28.10 @ 6:24AM
Your fixated with thinking Obama is a God ?
You act religous but want to make Obama as a messiah and God. Beware as you can go to hell for that as it is written that God only wants you to worship him not Barry, by the way when did barry change his name to Barack and where and when as you seem to know alot about him but we dont as he has sealed all his past from view.
A messiah would be honest and provide any facts we would need or ask to see to know it is safe to give him access to our nukes. What if Obama is the antichrist and can set off the bombs now because of too much trust?
What religion do you belong to as your all over the place and its hard to tell if your a atheist or some type of christian with pagan views.
Pingback| 9.18.09 @ 10:56AM
White House recruiting for ACORN? « Public Secrets links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Alan Brooks| 9.19.09 @ 1:57AM
Will have to read the below article over and over to appreciate it. It is postmodern 'literature'.
As 'good' as the one in the other blog right next door.
How about next time;
the "Marriage Supper of the Lamb Daphne Kenward"?
Don't forget: Hitler's enemies were all branded as "Socialists" and "Communists" whenever they dared speak out against his racism and hatred of those who dared oppose him and his Right Wing backers; all rich industrialists and those in bed with Cheney-style military interests: like now.
mark| 6.28.10 @ 6:33AM
hello I thought the acticle or book was written by a nut, How can he worship Obama as a God and quoate the bible ? as if he believes in it while worshiping a thug organiser from chicago as a messiah ? maybe he belongs to a new wave religion which is part pagan.
Alan Brooks| 9.19.09 @ 2:00AM
just that paragraph alone is worth the price of admission.
it namechecks Cheney, Hitler, Industrialists, Socialists, Bolsheviks, the Trilateral Commission, David Ferrie, Guy Bannister .............................
asdfasd| 4.1.10 @ 2:12AM
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