Obama's Cronyism

[Baneblade]

Source (http://www.ijreview.com/2012/05/5547-obama-gives-5-9-million-contract-to-friend-who-offered-bribe-to-silence-rev-jeremiah-wright/)

This could get awfully interesting.

Edward Klein, author of the yet-to-be-released unauthorized biography of President Obama, titled “The Amateur,” has now specifically named the man who allegedly bribed Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor, with a $150,000 payment to stop speaking publicly.

Klein, making an appearance on Sean Hannity’s radio show (via the Daily Caller), said, “Well, what happened is that after ABC’s Brian Ross broadcast the video tapes of the Rev. Wright ‘God damning America’ and slamming whites and slamming **** and America, he was contacted by one of Obama’s closest personal friends – a guy who travels on Obama’s plane, who plays basketball with him, who goes on vacation with him.” Klein continued to out the briber, saying, “His name is Dr. Eric Whitaker. Dr. Whitaker is the vice president of the University of Chicago Medical Center and he’s a member of Obama’s very tight inner circle. And he sent an email to a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ.”

Did I mention this could get awfully interesting?

Hannity and Klein confirmed that this was the exact same hospital from which Michelle Obama received a whopping $316,962 in salary in 2005 as a vice president for external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center, the year after Barack became a U.S. Senator. That would total a $195,052 raise from her salary of $121,910 in 2004.

Klein then said that, in an email to a member of the church, Whitaker would offer the $150,000 to Rev. Wright “if he would shut-up and not criticize Obama anymore. Then after the Rev. Wright said ‘No thank you,’ Obama himself paid a personal call on the Rev. Wright,” which took place “about ten days” after Obama’s ‘race speech’ in 2008.

Klein confirmed that the schedules reported by Rev. Wright and U.S. Secret Service Logs matched up, “so we have confirmation that [the meeting] actually took place.”

It is worth noting that the White House Dossier reported today that Whitaker just received a $5.9 million dollar grant from the Department of Health and Human Services last week. He won the grant from over 3,000 applicants.

Klein told Hannity he would give him the tapes of the interviews he held with Rev. Wright.

Not surprised.

[CutterJohn]

What does this matter? Even if true, its not illegal to pay someone to shut up if you're not trying to cover up a crime.


As for the grant, I'm not going to care much. Be glad its the president giving a scientist friend preferential treatment instead of an oil company executive friend. Ideally cronyism would never occur, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to change.

[Figment]

If you want to get really dirty, try opening a canister of Greek nepotism. :x

[ItsTheSheppy]

What does this matter? Even if true, its not illegal to pay someone to shut up if you're not trying to cover up a crime.


As for the grant, I'm not going to care much. Be glad its the president giving a scientist friend preferential treatment instead of an oil company executive friend. Ideally cronyism would never occur, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to change.

I'll agree that the grant is fishy and probably unfair, but paying a dude to shut up is, to me, a non-crime. That's politics.

It wasn't as if Wright was out there blowing the whistle on misconduct or something. He was just being a looney and a douchebag. So someone with a vested interest in his silence paid him money to shut up. Wright turned it down. Exactly where is someone's rights being violated?

If this was soviet Russia, Wright would have been black-bagged and never seen again. I think it's nice we live in a country where Obama had to call him up personally and ask him to stop.

[Effective]

Like this has never happened ever.

[Figment]

Speaking of cronyism, IF the Republicans win the next presidential elections, don't they get to replace some of the few remaining "Democrat" judges in the Supreme Court? Meaning pretty much all of them would be Republicans?

And how many judges had been replaced by GW Bush again?

[Baneblade]

Speaking of cronyism, IF the Republicans win the next presidential elections, don't they get to replace some of the few remaining "Democrat" judges in the Supreme Court? Meaning pretty much all of them would be Republicans?

And how many judges had been replaced by GW Bush again?

Since SCOTUS is a life position, they would have to give up their seat first.

[Warborn]

Obama has done way more egregious things than get some shithead preacher to shut his mouth for $150k. This kind of stuff is seriously just standard fare for anyone in politics.

[Baneblade]

Well you gotta admit, it is kind of funny that the shithead preacher valued his mouth more than his wallet.

[Red Beard]

Obama has done way more egregious things than get some shithead preacher to shut his mouth for $150k. This kind of stuff is seriously just standard fare for anyone in politics.

Hence the collapse of the whole system.

[Warborn]

Hence the collapse of the whole system.

The collapse of what system?

[RawketLawnchair]

So I guess we will all go stick our heads in the mud, aint that right?

Not me. I'd be one of the first people to raise my rifle if anyone really gave a damn.

[ItsTheSheppy]

So I guess we will all go stick our heads in the mud, aint that right?

Not me. I'd be one of the first people to raise my rifle if anyone really gave a damn.

Not sure what you mean.

As for valuing his mouth more than his wallet... I dunno. I mean, if someone offered me money to shut up and not speak my mind... I think it'd have to be a lot of money. I can think of little more valuable to me than my freedom to speak my mind. I'm not sure what the price for selling that away would be, but I don't think the President could afford it.

[RawketLawnchair]

Not sure what you mean.

I was referring to the way people look at Politics.
You either stick your head in the sand or get involved.

And I chose the ladder.

[ItsTheSheppy]

Well I mean, I vote. I send the occasional letter to my senator and congresswoman. Not sure exactly what rifles have to do in this particular case. I mean... how much political action does this really warrant? There's no crime or even policy being discussed. Just your typical political jockeying.

[RawketLawnchair]

There's no crime or even policy being discussed. Just your typical political jockeying.

That is where the illegal paying to cover up crimes comes into play.

And anyone would be ignorant to think it doesn't happen up at the top. A lot.

[ItsTheSheppy]

That is where the illegal paying to cover up crimes comes into play.

And anyone would be ignorant to think it doesn't happen up at the top.

Again, I'm not sure what the crime here is. There was a guy saying some crazy, awful stuff and he was connected to Obama. So his staff offered the guy some cash to shut up and he didn't.

There's nothing illegal about offering someone money to not talk about something. It is, in fact, quite common; NDAs are a good example of this. In this case, sure, it's skeezy, but no law was violated, and no rights were infringed.

[Figment]

Hmm, I'm under the impression Elcyco is bored given his last few replies today. :p

[Sirisian]

Hmm, I'm under the impression Elcyco is bored given his last few replies today. :p
heh, just read his reply in the other thread and was like "I think he went full retard". Jumped over to this one and was like "oh".
Start better topics then. Go go Iran nuclear program. Plenty of ugliness to expose on that one.
Not really. Also why don't you? This is like a very slow version of reddit's /r/politics and /r/worldnews.

[RawketLawnchair]

Again, I'm not sure what the crime here is. There was a guy saying some crazy, awful stuff and he was connected to Obama. So his staff offered the guy some cash to shut up and he didn't.

There's nothing illegal about offering someone money to not talk about something. It is, in fact, quite common; NDAs are a good example of this. In this case, sure, it's skeezy, but no law was violated, and no rights were infringed.

There isn't a crime here. Sorry for the mistake.
I was referring to other happenings, not this one in particular.
Kind of like the whole senate seat spiel.

The story in the OP can obviously be ignored as a crime, because it isn't one.
I'm referring to the times where people are payed off not to admit/ talk about crimes they may have committed/witnessed.

And that happens just as much as this does.

[ItsTheSheppy]

There isn't a crime here. Sorry for the mistake.
I was referring to other happenings, not this one in particular.
Kind of like the whole senate seat spiel.

The story in the OP can obviously be ignored as a crime, because it isn't one.
I'm referring to the times where people are payed off not to admit/ talk about crimes they may have committed/witnessed.

And that happens just as much as this does.

Oh, well, yeah. I mean if there is corruption, it needs to be yanked out root and branch and dragged before the eyes of the world so that all can see their shame. I strongly believe that corruption is, in fact, the number one problem in government today, and it is equally spread over all parties.

[Red Beard]

The collapse of what system?

Political, Economic.

[Warborn]

Political, Economic.

Easy on the hyperbole. The recession was Bush's baby and things are recovering after TARP etc. He ought to have dropped the hammer on Wall Street, but they're his bankers, too. Either way, the economic system is unfortunately still entirely intact and with no real changes to prevent the same shit happening again (as JPMorgan proved recently with its $3 billion loss).

And the political system is still the same two-party giant douche vs. turd sandwich stuff.

So yeah, I dunno what you're referring to, but nothing is even close to collapsing at this point.

[Red Beard]

Easy on the hyperbole. The recession was Bush's baby and things are recovering after TARP etc. He ought to have dropped the hammer on Wall Street, but they're his bankers, too. Either way, the economic system is unfortunately still entirely intact and with no real changes to prevent the same shit happening again (as JPMorgan proved recently with its $3 billion loss).

And the political system is still the same two-party giant douche vs. turd sandwich stuff.

So yeah, I dunno what you're referring to, but nothing is even close to collapsing at this point.

Well, all I can say is that I was harder on Bush than I have been on Obama.

As for the economics, TARP and all those 'programs' are just glorified ways of allowing the banks to privatize national assets while socializing private liabilities. Left or right it doesn't really matter. The major banks just act as a cartel/predatory lender to congress, when congress could print it's own money interest free, as it did prior to 1913. So much of the nation's productive capacity is going towards interest payments on fraudulent debt that the economy doesn't recover.

The sick part about it is that because in this system debt IS money, private business trying to get OUT of debt only makes it worse, because it collapses the money supply in circulation, so the gov has to step in to counter that deflationary pressure and keep the expansion going. Of course this this kind of deficit spending ends when your interest payments become higher than you budget allows for, so that's when you start austerity and slash social programs (because the banks don't care about those relative to their revenue stream).

The ceiling of course is when you can't make payments on the interest, which then send you into default, raising interest rates on your debt, at which point you debase your currency in order to make payments, or the creditors just come and take your assets. Not to mention few will be able to make mortgage payments at 10%, much less 20% (as it was in the 80s).

Have you noticed the Fed just sold of the first American bank to a Chinese state company? Or that the 'early investors' have started securing american land? There's nothing left to mortgage, so no; I don't think it's hyperbole sadly; it just hasn't bubbled to the surface quite yet.

And the political system is still the same two-party giant douche vs. turd sandwich stuff.

Yeah...would tend to agree with you on that.

[Warborn]

Capitalism being a corrupt and amoral institution isn't new, though. Yeah, it sucks and it sucks that all these people losing their jobs and homes and so on wasn't enough to make anyone care and try to change the system, but that's standard fare. And for all the shit the banks put people through these days, it's still better than the age of slavery and indentured servitude and child labour that existed during the golden age of capitalism, where everything was for sale and nothing could stand in the way of profit.

[Red Beard]

Guess how many people would have lost their jobs if there hadn't been bailouts...

Tons. Keeping the bubbles going however, just makes the inevitable correction more extreme. We are talking about the (acting) world reserve currency after all. Which reminds me; another example of that status being eroded are all the trade agreements between eastern block countries set up in the past year...They're settled in currencies other than the USD, which decreases the world demand for USDs. This was one of the primary factors with Iraq, as I believe (prior to the invasion), they were looking at settling oil transactions in Euros.

[Baneblade]

Guess how many people would have lost their jobs if there hadn't been bailouts...

Where was my bailout?

[Red Beard]

Where was my bailout?

It's a systemic, intentional fraud. The private liabilities of the banks are getting nationalized ("toxic asset" IS an oxymoron after all), and national assets are getting privatized (banks/corporations securing the title to land/roads/housing etc through debt default).

This scam happened because the Fed (banking cartel) has the power to set interest rates disproportionately low (see current levels), and then gets the government to guarantee all the loans people take to buy housing.

Once that commitment was in place, the banks knowingly and intentionally made loans to people the KNEW would default, thus committing fraud on the taxpayers (sub-prime loan fiasco of 2007/2008). The banks then bundled these bad debts into "mortgage backed securities" and sold them predominantly to INVESTORS IN EUROPE, committing fraud again. Kind of puts the Euro crisis in context, huh?

EDIT: Oh ya, and Goldman Sachs was doing the books for Greece. Not kidding.

[Red Beard]

Informative and entertaining

http://maxkeiser.com/

[Figment]

Informative and entertaining

http://maxkeiser.com/

Okay, I'm one minute in and this guy is nothing more than a raving, biased idiot with a political agenda and - ironically for this thread - has a crony that hands him non-critical observations, twists Obama quotes, and is there to strengthen the position of Keiser, rather than question and verify him, which is the normal procedure for good journalism. No, instead, she makes biased statements.

The moment he said "...and everything that happened during the Revolutionary War is torn up and turned into confetti" anything else he's going to say is going to be up for intense scrutiny, because if you make such a stupid strawman hyperbole, how much of the remainder of his rant is true?


At first I thought this must have been something from the Onion, but this is actually broadcast on a normal television network?