At PJM, J. Christian Adams runs down how Barack Obama’s and Eric Holder’s “Justice” Department wants to accomplish before the fact something Al Gore tried to do after the fact to steal the 2000 presidential election:

Decisions by Washington bureaucrats over the next four weeks will have a profound impact on the upcoming November election. These bureaucrats will decide whether or not those serving in the military from twelve states will have a full and effective opportunity to participate. If they choose to do anything other than aggressively enforce federal laws protecting military voters, many of those serving our nation won’t have a voice.

… the MOVE (Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment) Act — signed into law October 2009 — set a mandatory minimum time of 45 days before any federal election to mail ballots to overseas voters. MOVE was a rebuke to the bureaucrats who were stuck on a non-statutory 30-day standard used as a minimum in previous elections.

Blind bureaucratic reliance on the 30-day standard resulted in 17,000 overseas ballots not being counted in the 2008 election. The military postal service says 60 days is needed to get ballots to our troops and back again, but a law is only as good as the people enforcing it.

The new law contains a waiver provision which allows states to exempt out of the requirements by demonstrating an extreme emergency. They also must submit a plan that provides sufficient time for military voters to have their vote counted. For example, if a state had a constitutional provision in conflict with MOVE, and more time was needed to pass a constitutional amendment, a waiver would be appropriate if it included extra time after the election for the vote to be counted, even if late. A waiver is inappropriate if a state simply decides not to comply with MOVE.

… Twelve states (actually 11 plus D.C. — Ed.) have applied for waivers from protecting military voters in the 2010 election: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Wisconsin, Colorado, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, and the District of Columbia.

Citizens from these states should be outraged that their state didn’t take steps to protect military voting rights despite having plenty of time to do so. States like Florida, Georgia, and Vermont got the job done and made changes to comply with MOVE. These twelve did nothing.

Citizens from these states can petition their top state election official, usually the Secretary of State, to withdraw the shameful waiver requests. Some of these states still have legislatures in session that could fix the problem, but they won’t.

The Pentagon Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) has 45 days to deny or grant the waiver requests. Unfortunately, this takes us right up to the day when ballots would need to be sent to soldiers to be effective. The FVAP should quickly deny the waiver requests so the DOJ can then sue the states who are not in compliance with MOVE. The DOJ shouldn’t spend weeks pondering the waiver requests either. The DOJ’s Voting Section should get their recommendations back to the FVAP within a few days, not after a few weeks. Delay by the DOJ means someone serving overseas will be harmed. Instead of being ponderous, the DOJ should be putting targets in their crosshairs to sue, now.

Y’know, one of the most egregious offenses against common decency and fair play in this administration has been its obvious disregard for election law enforcement. It let the Pennsylvania Black Panthers skate. It has decided that “not support any enforcement of a key section of the federal “Motor Voter” law — Section 8, which requires states to periodically purge their voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters and those who have moved out of state.”

And now this, a clear attempt to let the above mentioned states — the vast majority of which have Democratic governors, by the way — deny soldiers who risk their lives overseas daily their most cherished right as citizens through sheer sloth.

Is there no end to the electoral affronts?

Unplanned but necessary “improvements,” or induced corrections? I’ll report; readers can decide.

My early afternoon post at my home blog dealt with Government/General Motors’ profitability and CEO Ed Whitacre’s “coincidental” step-down from his CEO position. That post originally noted two things that seemed problematic in the Associated Press’s reporting about the company’s plans for an initial public offering this year (the IPO is problematic thanks to Obamanomics, but that’s not the topic here).

In the  AP’s original report (since revised, which is why it’s saved here at my web host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes), reporters Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin, with assistance from Dan Strumpf, reported the following two items in supposedly relaying the results of a discussions with “Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of IPO Boutique in Tampa, Florida, which advises investors on IPOs,” Whitacre, and unnamed government officials (bold is mine):

Several recent IPOs have been postponed because of concerns that they won’t get a high enough share price, he said. He also said the Obama administration is pressuring GM to sell prematurely to influence the November congressional elections. Last week, Whitacre said the elections are not being considered, and the government has repeatedly said GM is in charge of the sale timing.

My original reactions to the two items in my original post were as follows:

• (to the assertion about government pressure to sell prematurely) “The AP’s quoted expert also dropped a bombshell — apparently without qualification — that may not survive future AP revisions.”
• (to the possibly contradictory assertions about who’s controlling the IPO’s timing) “(Whitacre) saying that GM ‘is in charge of the sale timing’ is NOT the same as saying ‘we’re not trying to influence the timing.’”

Amazingly, the 4:51 p.m report by the same three reporters, with additional help from Ken Thomas (also saved at my web host, for the same reasons as above), revised — perhaps more accurate terms might be “cleaned up” or “covered the tracks of” — the wire service’s earlier report thusly:

Sweet said the Obama administration may be pressuring GM to sell prematurely to influence the November congressional elections and make the government’s controversial investment look smart. Whitacre and the government have both said GM is in charge of the timing of the IPO.

So Sweet went from an unqualified affirmative assertion concerning government interference to a “maybe.” Oh, and now GM and the government are magically saying the same thing about who’s in charge of the IPO’s timing, even though it seems that they weren’t before. As legendary Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen might have said, “How ’bout that!” Or, given the last name of the statement-changing subject matter expert involved, it might be the late Jackie Gleason’s “How Sweet it is!”

I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether AP’s version 1 or version 2 is more accurate, and whether version 2 might have been influenced by yours truly’s critique of version 1.

If it’s the latter, I would like to formally welcome the AP reporters involved to the self-correcting (or is it track-covering?) mechanism known as the blogosphere. Say hi to Tom Curley & Co. for me, will ya? And while you’re at it, ask him how his war against bloggers, search engines, and the online world in general is going.

If it’s the former, readers and commenters are free to speculate on what instigated the changes.

Geez, I didn’t even cross-post my initial effort at NewsBusters. But this one has been.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

This is going to require a lot more investigation than yours truly has time for at the moment, but it seems that if #1 were as good as indicated, #2 might not be happening:

• #1, Via AP — “GM posts $1.33 billion profit, a sign of strength” (Update: Changed at 12:45 p.m. to “GM posts big profit; CEO says he’s done his job”)
• #2, also Via AP — “GM CEO Whitacre says will step down Sept. 1″

(Both links are dynamic and will probably change throughout the day.)

But there is another possible reason why Whitacre is leaving.

We’re told that the government really, really, really isn’t involved in GM’s management. Hmm. I guess that means we’re supposed to assume that there’s absolutely no relationship (of course not, there couldn’t possibly be) between Whitacre’s imminent departure and this quote from last week:

I suspect that the White House’s car czar and cronies had a hard time digesting that level of antagonism.

Despite the apparent good news on the financial front, there’s a teeny-tiny problem with having Whitacre around after the blurt-out just noted. AP item #1 about GM’s profit reports that the failure that is Obamanomics has adversely affected the climate for the initial public offering that would “get the government out, period.” The AP’s quoted expert also dropped a bombshell — apparently without qualification — that may not survive future AP revisions (bolds are mine):

Although GM is performing well, the timing still isn’t right for it to sell shares in the next few months because of the sputtering economy, said Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of IPO Boutique in Tampa, Florida, which advises investors on IPOs.

Several recent IPOs have been postponed because of concerns that they won’t get a high enough share price, he said. He also said the Obama administration is pressuring GM to sell prematurely to influence the November congressional elections. Last week, Whitacre said the elections are not being considered, and the government has repeatedly said GM is in charge of the sale timing.

Saying that GM “is in charge of the sale timing” is NOT the same as saying “we’re not trying to influence the timing,” is it?

It’s here. The most-read ever cite comes from WashEx’s Mark Tapscott via Instapundit.

Readers are encouraged to add to the record.

The excerpts that follow focus on how Obamanomics has failed in three key areas — attempting a Keynesian stimulus that stimulated nothing lasting, creating regulatory uncertainty, and refusing to address imminent higher taxes:

(Resigning effective Sept. 3 Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Christine) Romer predicted that following passage of the stimulus bill, unemployment would plateau below 8 percent last fall and by this month register at 7 percent. That’s not close enough for government work, as unemployment stands at 9.5 percent today. It would be higher except that hundreds of thousands of frustrated job seekers have given up looking for new jobs and dropped out of the labor force.

… As Romer fades back to her teaching post at Berkeley, Obama is adding to the economic misery by creating an environment of regulatory uncertainty. The Wall Street reform law Obama recently signed potentially requires 533 new regulations, 60 studies and 93 reports, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has 29 active rulemakings, and there are 100 new rules on the Labor Department’s agenda and 26 at the Transportation Department.

… Add Obama’s determination to raise everybody’s taxes by allowing the Bush cuts from 2001 and 2003 to expire Jan. 1, 2011, and it’s easy to why banks, businesses and consumers are hoarding trillions of dollars that could otherwise spur economic growth.

… Obamanomics has failed miserably and it’s time for everybody in this town to admit it so we can move on.

I appreciate that WashEx’s editorialists went to the trouble of quantifying the regulatory burdens being imposed by just one of the many new laws (ObamaCare’s burden probably exceeds the level of the misnamed “Wall Street reform”) and just one federal agency. Yikes.

______________________________________________________

UPDATE: A report from the “Jobs Not Created and Not Saved” Dept. –

First-time claims for jobless benefits edged up by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 484,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts had expected a drop. That’s the highest total since February.

The not seasonally adjusted numbers are just as discomforting.

Big and crony-connected businesses are doing okay. The small and non-connected? Not so much.

________________________

Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Tuesday.

_________________________

Since the arrival of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy just over two years ago, there has been a profound shift in the economy. Many big businesses are holding their own, while all too many small businesses are getting hammered.

Some of the best evidence supporting this observation can be found in the Treasury Department’s Daily and Monthly Treasury Statements. The June Monthly Statement, covering the first nine months of the current fiscal year, tells us that receipts from corporate income taxes were $133 billion. This is what “C corporations“ have directly paid to Uncle Sam. Though this amount is down by 44% compared to the first nine months of 2008 (more on that in a bit), it’s an increase of almost 31% over the $102 billion received through the same time last year.

Meanwhile, in the last Daily Treasury Statement for July, the “Individual Income and Employment Taxes Not Withheld” line item, plus a smaller one called “Individual Income Taxes,” have totaled $276 billion through the first ten months of fiscal 2010. These two lines represent gross amounts paid directly by individual income tax filers (excluding refunds), and primarily arrive as quarterly estimated tax payments from the self-employed and those who own Subchapter S and limited liability corporations. These collections through July are down almost 9% from the $313 billion seen during the same period in 2009, and a whopping 28% from the $437 billion collected in the first ten months of fiscal 2008.

The increase in corporate income tax receipts indicates that after a year of recession accompanied by a painful adjustment to the new statist reality (which explains the steep drop in receipts from fiscal 2008 to 2009), large firms have figured out how to survive in this “It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid” economic environment by grabbing market share from less solid and often smaller competitors, aggressive price-cutting, slashing costs, and, after a year of so of having to let employees go to maintain decent returns for shareholders (and in some cases, just to stay in business), generally not hiring people back.

Large firms’ lobbyists and lawyers have enabled them to better navigate the morass of government rules and regulations without getting tripped up. Because of their access and political contributions, they have also likely been more successful at getting a disproportionate share of the federal government’s purchases, one of the few areas of the economy that is growing. As seen here, in the past eight reported quarters, the federal government’s consumption and “investment” that is considered part of the economy’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by over 12% in real terms. The rest of the economy, despite four quarters of “recovery,” is still over 2% smaller than it was two years ago.

The proof is in the cash flow, both to the government, as noted above, and into corporate coffers. As of the end of this year’s first calendar quarter, the 500 largest non-financial corporations had total cash balances of $1.8 trillion, up by hundreds of billions in just twelve months. Yet they’re not investing — nor should they, as long as uncertainty and weak demand remain. But they’d better be wary of sitting on their cash hoard for too long before distributing some of it to shareholders. The IRS might dust off the accumulated earnings tax, an arcane, little-known, and seldom-used punitive weapon it has in the past aimed at companies that build up cash reserves beyond what is needed to finance operations and expansion. Big business had also better watch out for a building backlash from ignorant but potent demagogues in the government and the press.

In normal recoveries and normal economies, small business leads the charge in job creation. Because it’s more difficult for the government and other gatherers of statistics to figure out the good things small businesses are up to, analysts usually tend to underestimate what will appear in initial reports on economic growth and jobs. Additionally, subsequent revisions to originally reported data tend to surprise on the upside. This is generally what occurred while I was tracking these things from 2005 until the spring of 2008 under Bush 43.

Anything resembling normalcy ended when the POR economy kicked in. Since then, downward disappointments have happened so often that the word “unexpectedly” associated with bad news has become a running joke in the center-right blogosphere. This is occurring because so many small businesses are either out of business, seriously contracting, or treading water. For the most part, they’re not hiring. Understandably, it takes the statisticians a while to figure this out.

A prime example of disappointment occurred when the Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusted its originally reported job losses for calendar 2009 in its January 2010 report. All of a sudden, the number of people employed fell by over 600,000.

The worst example of a subsequent statistical meltdown occurred with GDP during the third quarter of 2008. That quarter also “just happened” to be the first quarter of the POR economy and of the recession as normal people define it. At the end of its initial round of reports, the government thought the economy had contracted by an annualized 0.5%. Subsequent comprehensive revisions took that number first to -2.1%, then to -2.7%. The government’s July 30 GDP report whacked it down to an annualized -4.0% — eight times worse than originally thought. The cratering occurred because businesses large and small, entrepreneurs, and investors saw the regime uncertainty that was coming (some call it “utter lawlessness“), and battened down the hatches.

Since then, though some of their behavior smacks of trying to be the last guy who gets eaten by the alligator, large firms, thanks to the special advantages cited above, have sort of figured out how to cope. Small businesses without crony connections in the ruling class aren’t as fortunate. As a result, neither are the rest of us, especially those who don’t already have jobs.

This situation doesn’t seem likely to improve significantly until the current atmosphere of regime uncertainty ends. I’m afraid that won’t occur until there is regime change.

Wednesday evening, Brent Baker at NewsBusters noted that two of the Big Three television networks failed to tag Dan Rostenkowsi, the former long-time congressman from Chicago who was ousted from his seat in 1994 over corruption charges and ended doing prison time, as a Democrat. Rostenkowski (RIP), who was 82, died yesterday.

At the five major wire services whose reports I reviewed — The Associated Press, Reuters, UPI, AFP, and the business-oriented Bloomberg News — Rosty’s Democratic affiliation made at least one appearance. But the prominence and directness of those appearances varied widely.

Not surprisingly, the Associated Press and writer Don Babwin did the worst job of identifying Rosty’s party, waiting until the eleventh paragraph to directly tag him (the eighth paragraph contains a generic reference to the “Chicago Democratic machine”), and poured it on the thickest when referring to the supposedly beloved bygone days of bipartisanship:

Rostenkowski became symbol of power and excesses

With his rumpled suits and gruff, growling voice, former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski was far more comfortable behind closed doors than in front of the camera or behind a podium.

Rostenkowski left speeches to others, but he quietly wielded enormous power on Capitol Hill for more than 30 years, becoming one of the most powerful lawmakers of his time – and a potent symbol of Washington’s excesses after he pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

When Rostenkowski died Wednesday of lung cancer at age 82, those who knew him recalled a meat-and potatoes politician from an era that doesn’t exist anymore, where leaders crossed party lines to cut deals and seek consensus, and where a young man from Chicago’s Northwest Side could grow up to shape the national agenda as head of a congressional committee. Today most of that power rests with the House speaker.

… Back home, where he emerged from the Chicago Democratic Machine, Rostenkowski brought in millions of federal dollars for public works projects, including improvements to the Kennedy Expressway, the transformation of Navy Pier on Chicago’s downtown lakefront into a recreational area, and the construction of a train line to the city’s biggest airport.

… Rostenkowski was at once a tough politician who called Chicago politics a “blood sport,” and a master at the disappearing art of political compromise. So even as he fought battles on behalf of Chicago mayors back home, the staunch Democrat worked closely with President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush in Washington.

“We were going to work together,” he once said. “We were going to get something done. We were Democrats and Republicans, but we were also legislators.”

Sensible, Constitution-based conservatives more accurately recall the years fondly described by Babwin as the period when Congressional Republicans could usually be counted to eventually cave in to the government-expanding ideas of Democrats and then figure out a way to pay for them by becoming what Newt Gingrich, who become the first to seriously change that dynamic in 1994 (unfortunately not consistently), used to call “tax collectors for the welfare state.”

At Reuters, Nick Carey got the D-word into the third paragraph, while remarkably (and correctly) connecting Rostenkowski to a current congressman in serious trouble:

Former Representative Dan Rostenkowski dies at 82

Dan Rostenkowski, who as Congress’ chief tax-writer was one of most powerful U.S. politicians in the 1980s and early 1990s until brought down by a corruption conviction and a 17-month prison sentence, has died at age 82.

The office of an alderman in Rostenkowski’s old congressional district in Chicago on Wednesday confirmed his death.

As chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee for 13 years starting in 1981, the Illinois Democrat had a hand in some of the most important legislation of that period.

But a federal grand jury indicted him on felony corruption charges in 1994, and he eventually pleaded guilty to mail fraud.

Just last March, another Democrat who led the Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel, was forced to step down as chairman in the face of ethics charges.

UPI’s unbyllined coverage was hard on Rosty but overly light on the D-word, putting in the worst performance of all five wire services in that regard. The coverage never directly referred to him as a Democrat, only noting that his father was a party member:

Former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski dead

Former U.S. Rep Dan Rostenkowski, who rose to be chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and went to prison in disgrace, died Wednesday. He was 82.

Rostenkowski died at his summer home in Powers Lake, Wis., after a long battle with cancer, the Chicago Tribune reported.

A onetime Washington political insider and power broker, Rostenkowski represented his Chicago 5th Congressional District in Congress for 36 years, rising to head the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee that rewrote the 1986 U.S. tax code. The son of 32nd Ward Democratic Alderman Joseph Rostenkowski, Daniel was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1958 and served until scandal brought him down in 1994.

He was indicted on 17 counts ranging from mail and wire fraud to obstruction of justice, including hiring ghost payrollers and maintaining political slush funds.

Over at AFP, the unbylined story’s headline weirdly didn’t name Rosty, but got the D-word into the third paragraph, while doing a pretty good job of succinctly describing his political life:

Powerful 18-term former US congressman dies

CHICAGO — Dan Rostenkowski, a powerful legislator during the Ronald Reagan era who was elected to 18 terms in Congress before being arrested on corruption charges, died Wednesday at the age of 82.

An old-style Chicago ward boss and protege of the windy city’s legendary mayor Richard J. Daley, Rostenkowski served in the House of Representatives from 1959 to 1995.

As chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee from 1981 until 1994, the Illinois Democrat helped broker a key deal to keep the Social Security system solvent and played a major role in reforming taxes, welfare and foreign trade.

He was unseated by an upstart Republican in the 1994 election after being indicted in a wide-ranging corruption case where he was accused of everything from maintaining slush funds to accepting bribes.

Despite pleading guilty to two counts of mail fraud for misusing taxpayer money in 1996 and serving 15 months in jail, Rostenkowski maintained his innocence for the rest of his life.

He was pardoned by outgoing President Bill Clinton just before Christmas 2000.

Business-oriented Bloomberg News was the only outlet to put Rostenkowski’s party affiliation into its headline, and otherwise pulled no punches on using the D-word. As would be expected, Laurence Arnold’s story concentrated on Rosty’s involvement with tax legislation:

Dan Rostenkowski, Democrat Who Steered Tax Policy, Dies at 82

Dan Rostenkowski, a product of Chicago’s fabled political machine who engineered U.S. tax policy, indulged in the perks of his job during 36 years in Congress and wound up in prison for misusing funds, has died, according to a Democratic official. He was 82.

He died today at his home in Wisconsin, the official said.

As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1981 to 1994, Rostenkowski was a Democratic rampart that three presidents had to navigate if they hoped to change U.S. tax laws as well as health and Social Security policies.

The grandson of Polish immigrants and protégé of legendary Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, Rostenkowski was “big, brash and bellowing — a door slammer and, at times, a bully,” Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray wrote in “Showdown at Gucci Gulch: Lawmakers, Lobbyists and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform,” an account of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

That law was Rostenkowski’s best-known achievement. He worked with Republican President Ronald Reagan and other lawmakers to lower tax rates while ending enough deductions and shelters to avoid increasing the federal budget deficit.

He became something of a national celebrity for urging viewers, in a televised address, to send letters supporting tax reform to “Rosty, Washington, D.C.” Tens of thousands of letters came in that way, and for a time “Write Rosty” buttons were the rage on Capitol Hill.

His long career ended in an indictment, lost reelection, conviction and prison sentence.

Since Bloomberg mentioned health policy, it’s worth recalling that one of Rosty’s worst political moments related to how he wanted to “reform” Medicare. As would be expected from a Democrat, it involved taxes and higher premiums. Eventually it was kicked to the curb. That’s because as a YouTube courtesy of CBSNewsOnline shows, opposition was fierce.

The video’s last few moments capture an exchange that could have come straight out the Democratic Party’s 2010 playbook:

Rostenkowski (to a reporter walking alongside him as he was attempting to “escape,” i.e., avoid talking to, an angry crowd of seniors): I don’t think they understand what the government’s trying to do for them. That’s always been a problem.

Reporter: Do you sympathize with their anger on this?

Rostenkowski: No, I don’t think they understand what’s going on.

With all due respect to the late congressman, the upset seniors knew exactly what was going on then; many more of us understand it even better now.

Update, August 12, 10:00 a..m.: To be fair to AP, its primary story covering Rostenkowski’s death began by telling readers that “Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, the Chicago Democrat who became the leading architect of congressional tax policy in the Reagan era but later went to federal prison for corruption, died Wednesday …”

To be critical of AP, there’s a BIG problem with that statement: Ronald Reagan and his administration set “policy”; Rosty’s and Congress’s involvement was to write and to an extent influence the legislation that implemented Reagan’s policy. Zheesh; it’s as if AP wants to give Democrats credit for the 1980s tax cuts.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

At crunch time, he sided with statism.

What follows confirms an item covered originally at NewsBusters by Warner Todd Huston.

Today Lachlan Markey at NewsBusters covered that confirmation.

The news in April 2009 via Huston:

CEO Jeffery Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker are reported to have called some of CNBC’s on-air talent to a secret meeting … The meeting was called to scold the cable yackers for being too harsh on the Obammessiah, with the … Jeffs warning that CNBC is turning into “the Obama bashing network” and that the cable outlet is becoming “too conservative.”

This week, as Markey reports, Fox Business Channel’s Charles Gasparino told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that this is indeed what happened:

O’REILLY: You worked at CNBC, that’s a business network.

GASPARINO: Sometimes opinion.

O’REILLY: Did you see left-wing stuff there?

GASPARINO: Well it was interesting. There was – and it turned out to be true, I think the New York Post reported it – there was this issue where Jeff Immelt, chairman of GE, which used to own NBC Universal, called in some of the senior staff, and clearly was worried, according to the people I spoke to who were in that meeting, about the possibility that we were becoming too anti-administration. This was when the Obama administration first took over, and some of the spending plans came out, and the markets reacted.

O’REILLY: So Immelt himself intruded on the editorial position of CNBC because he felt that you weren’t giving Obama a fair shake?

GASPARINO: They will deny it, officially, but from what I understand, and I spoke with people there, people got called into this meeting, and they were basically, not exactly read the riot act, but the question of whether they were being fair to the president was brought up. I’ve never heard that before.

Inmelt’s motivation was quite transparent, as Markey notes: “General Electric at the time was hoping to profit handsomely from policies that would benefit a few companies, including GE, at the expense of the majority of the economy” — specicially, cap and trade.

But speaking of motivation: What’s with Gasparino?

The easy answer would be that sometime in the past two years he has seen the light and realizes his past reporting at CNBC was lacking in fairness and balance. Despite his move to Fox, there’s reason to doubt that.

In October 2008, Gasparino and CNBC’s Dylan Ratigan smirked their way through their report on what has turned out in retrospect to have been the event that marked the official beginning of Washington’s financial tyranny (“arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority”) over the banking system. That tyranny has largely been codified into law in the recently passed and laughably misnamed “Financial Services Reform” legislation.

On October 14, 2008, less than two weeks after Congress passed legislation creating the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) with the supposed intent of using the money to buy up specific “toxic assets,” mostly subprime mortgages, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson radically shifted course, forcing the nation’s largest banks to take TARP money directly (i.e., to accept government “investment”) regardless of whether they wanted it or believe they needed it.

What follows is a transcript containing most of the early portion of what Ratigan and Gasparino reported before going to other talking heads for their comments (video is still here at CNBC, and must be seen to fully appreciate the conversation’s smarmy arrogance, especially with Gasparino; bolds are mine):

Ratigan: Well we all know that obscene amounts of risk (were) taken inside of the banking system, leaving some banks crippled, some banks frozen, and other banks with huge opportunities.

Uh, many of the banks didn’t want to be tainted with the government bailout funds because they didn’t want to be mistaken for a fool when they actually felt that they were the smart one that didn’t do it.

Well Hank Paulson said “The heck with that.” He stuck all of them with some of the bailout money. And he said “Listen, we’re going to reset the clock here and move forward.” Charlie, how are the banks that felt they basically didn’t commit the crime, as it were, of excess or reckless risk, uh, respond to the fact that even they will be stuck with this capital?

Charlie Gasparino: Well y’know they were all kind of stupid to some extent …..

….. the Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson put all these egos in the room, and basically put guns to their heads, forcing them to take the money to bolster the banking system.

Some of the firms say they didn’t want the cash, but it’s pretty clear that all of them did need to take the cash, given the continued upheaval in the banking system that crushed shares last week of Morgan as well as Goldman Sachs and just about everybody else.

So this is essentially, uh, Dylan, a case where, y’know, you can deny you have any problems. Even the best-capitalized banks have problems. They own this stuff. And Paulson at one point said, “Listen, if you don’t want it, it doesn’t matter, gun to your head, you gotta take it.”

Ratigan: Yeah, whether you think you’re sick or not, you’re taking the medicine.

Gasparino: Because you’re sick anyway.

Ratigan: Exactly.

Part of my reax at the time:

It was very unsettling to see the two CNBC reporters basically smile and smirk their way through the opening segment of the clip, with what I saw as an air of insufferable “we know it all” arrogance.

… This “bailout” was originally advertised as being targeted towards troubled loan situations, principally mortgages. Instead, Paulson, Bernanke, and Bush have turned it into a de facto, no good deed goes unpunished (i.e., responsible lending) tool for partial nationalization.

How many Congresspersons, or presidential candidates, thought this was what they were voting for, or that this is what the people wanted?

Commenter dscott’s reax at the time:

Something is up because this is not how a government official acts in a Democracy.

“Something” was up all right. We should never forget that the congressmen and senators from both parties, including each party’s presidential candidate, voted TARP into existence despite the intense opposition of the vast majority of Americans, thereby allowing a loophole-laden law to open the door to what has since transpired.

Then, less than two weeks later, virtually everyone just stood around while tyranny took its first sweeping steps.

Charles Gasparino thought it was sort of funny at the time, as if the financial system’s private players were getting a richly deserved comeuppance. That attitude is consistent with the theme of his most recent book, and of the one that will be released shortly.

In November of last year, Gasparino’s “The Sellout” was subtitled “How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed and Government Mismanagement Destroyed the Global Financial System.” Given what we have learned about the frauds by design known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the two years since they went into government conservatorship, it’s more than a little odd that he would mention Wall Street first.

Gasparino is releasing a book in October whose title is, “Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street.” The book’s tagline: “A top reporter exposes the deep ties between the Obama administration and the big banks that are bankrupting our country.”

I’m sure there’s no shortage of material. But fundamentally, Charles, how could it be that Wall Street perpetrated this mess with just a bit of cooperation from and co-opting of Uncle Sam, when it’s Fan and Fred who led the way in compromising prudent lending standards, and it’s Fan and Fred who lied about the underlying quality of their securitized mortgages for about 15 years to the tune of hundreds of billions and perhaps trillions of dollars, doing damage that Wall Street couldn’t hope to do even at its most malicious?

Someone –maybe Bill O’Reilly — should ask Gasparino if he still thinks Wall Street is the primary culprit. He clearly did at crunch time in October 2008.

Cross-posted in shorter form at NewsBusters.org.

Not that it was a particularly impressive insight, but an IBD editorial’s take on the results of yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting confirmed what yours truly asserted was the second nasty element in Ben Bernanke’s “unusual uncertainty” Congressional testimony in July (bolds are mine):

After meeting Tuesday, the Federal Reserve signaled that it believes the economy isn’t performing as well as it should. But there’s not a whole lot left that the Fed can do.

A government can “stimulate” a dead economy in only two ways. One is to print money and risk inflation — monetary policy. The other is to cut spending and lower taxes — fiscal policy.

Unfortunately, as the results of Tuesday’s Fed policy meeting show, we’ve pretty much exhausted our monetary policy arsenal.

… GDP growth in the second quarter was a disappointing 2.4% — and looks like it’s trending lower.

… In its statement Tuesday, the Fed admitted that “the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months.” In other words, despite what the Fed, President Obama and Congress have done, the risk of a double-dip recession is growing.

So what’ll the Fed do now, besides hold interest rates near record lows? To prime the economy’s pump, the central bank said it will “(reinvest) principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities (from the stimulus and bailouts) in longer-term Treasury securities.”

Translation: As bailout and stimulus funds get repaid, the Fed will use the money it created out of thin air to help fund the nation’s budget deficits, now running at more than $1 trillion a year.

But it won’t work. The Fed has already pumped an estimated $2 trillion into the banking system to encourage lending. All that new money may have kept us from deflation, but it didn’t boost real economic output.

… If anything, the Keynesian medicine prescribed by the president and Congress is making the patient sicker.

Speaking of “real economic output” and “trending lower,” Zero Hedge has identified two credible reasons to believe that second quarter GDP is going to get revised downward — wayyyyyy downward (internal link is in original; bold is mine):

As JPM (Michael Feroli at JP Morgan) reported earlier, revision in BEA (Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Economic Analysis) assumptions on wholesale and non-durable inventory alone will push Q1 GDP from the official 2.4% to 1.3%. Today’s data (on trade) is the last nail in the Q2 GDP number, and according to analyst(s) will take out another 0.4% from the GDP, meaning that when all is said and done, Q2 GDP will come out to sub-1%.

Geez, in my July 30 GDP post, I was hoping that the trade data foreshadowed upward revisions, not downwards.

The late August and late September revisions to GDP will come out just as many in the 85% of the population that is relatively disengaged are beginning to really pay attention to the fall electoral contests (okay, maybe thanks to the Tea Party movement it might — emphasis might — be more like 75%-80%). If the GDP revisions are as bad as JPM and ZH are estimating (conceivably they could be worse, given the track record of downward revisions for other reasons in recent quarters), the political fallout will be immense.

(Written hopefully in jest) If I were running the BEA, I would consider completely cutting off incoming phone and e-mail access from the White House for the next 51 days until the second quarter’s final scheduled revision hits the wires.

From Denver, Colorado:

Aug 11, 2010 / 01:03 am

The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), a college campus outreach program, recently added eight more universities to the number of campuses it serves. The organization now has affiliates at 50 campuses in 27 states and the District of Columbia.

Teams of four or more men and women are sent to be FOCUS missionaries at university campuses at the invitation of the local bishop and with the support of the local Newman Center or Catholic campus ministry. According to a press release from FOCUS, more than 250 missionaries will work on the 50 campuses this year.

Missionaries are typically recent college graduates and devote two or more years to reach out to their peers on a full-time basis. FOCUS says it seeks to communicate the Gospel to young adults in “a dynamic and culturally relevant way,” inviting them to a relationship with Jesus Christ and to the fullness of the Catholic Church.

The eight new campuses that will receive FOCUS teams are: Colorado School of Mines, George Washington University, Georgia Southern University, Northern Arizona University, Texas State University, the University of Kansas, Florida Gulf Coast University, and the College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska.

FOCUS founder Curtis Martin said the organization is excited to see “the increasing demand and desire for FOCUS missionaries throughout the country.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Those who don’t believe that high taxes on the rich don’t influence economic activity or economic behavior, which of course includes many in the establishment press, are going to have a tough time explaining away this brief item that’s being reported in the Associated Press:

Tour officials hampered by UK tax rules

European Tour officials are in talks with the British government over tax rules which they say could deter leading golfers from playing in the Ryder Cup in October.

Players competing in the match between Europe and the United States at Celtic Manor, Wales, could be seriously affected by new rules issued by the customs and revenue agency, which can now tax foreign sportsmen and women not just on prize money earned but on sponsorship and endorsements.

Mitchell Platts, the European Tour’s director of public relations corporate affairs, said Tuesday the tax rule was “seriously hampering our efforts.”

This is pretty obviously double taxation of the same income in both the home country and the UK.

If they don’t fix this by the London 2012 Olympics, there may be an unplanned return to what used to be known as the amateur ideal, as many of the world’s Olympic-level athletes, particularly in sports like basketball and tennis, may decide to take a pass.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

There are quite a few shaky assertions in Alan Zibel’s Associated Press report yesterday about Freddie Mac’s latest quarterly loss ($6 billion), its latest bailout installment request to the U.S. Treasury ($1.8 billion), and the cumulative taxpayer bailout amounts that have been paid out to Freddie Mac and big sister Fannie Mae thus far ($148.2 billion) — too many to cover in a blog post.

So I’ll concentrate on the howlers present in just a single paragraph near the end, wherein the AP reporter attempts to explain why the two formerly government-sponsored mortgage giants that are now government-bailout enterprises ran into the ditch. TThe verbiage pretty much states the meme that the establishment press seems to want the public to swallow about what went down, and who’s to blame:

During the housing boom, Fannie and Freddie faced political pressure to expand homeownership and competitive pressure from Wall Street to back ever-riskier loans. When the market went bust, defaults and foreclosures piled up, and the government had to take them over.

Zibel treats the two giants as if they were innocent bystanders in a boom that “just so happened” to coincide with the political pressures it faced. Nonsense. It’s more accurate to say that Fan and Fred fed the boom to the point of being its major cause. Many already know that in 1999, Fannie Mae announced looser lending standards (Fred soon followed; go here to see what this specifically meant). Even the New York Times was a bit concerned at the time:

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980′s.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

Probably much more important is something that is about the best-kept secret outside of the Wall Street Journal in the establishment press. In a December 29, 2009 article, the aforementioned Wallison conveyed an assertion by Edward Pinto, who is certainly in a position to know, that, as far back as 1993, Fan and Fred “routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A.” In other words, they deceived the financial markets and the ratings agencies on a massive scale about the underlying quality ofhundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars of securitized mortgages. If Zibel isn’t aware of this, he should be. If this has anything to do with “competitive pressure,” I’d like him to explain how that’s the case.

It’s also not written in stone that “the government had to take them over.” Perhaps it felt obligated because of the implicit guarantees against default (they were not explicit, despite Zibel’s claim that they were), but the legal requirement for Uncle Sam to take over Fan and Fred in troubled circumstances was not there.

Zibel wants readers to believe that Fan and Fred were really just victims of a “market (that) went bust” during the final year of the Bush administration. No sir, it has become painfully apparent that they sowed the seeds of that bust by committing fraud on what may be an unprecedented scale all the way back to the early Clinton years. Taxpayers are now reaping the whirlwind.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

… Ted Stevens.