Bill Clinton to campaign for Emanuel in Chicago

Former President Bill Clinton is coming to Chicago in January to campaign for mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel.

Before serving in President Barack Obama's White House and representing the North Side of Chicago in Congress, Emanuel worked in Clinton's administration as a senior adviser for policy and strategy.

Clinton is scheduled to headline a public event that highlights Emanuel's role in passing a crime bill....

December 23, 2009

Attorney General of the United States of America
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

We write to demand an immediate investigation into the activities of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. We believe there is an abundant public record which establishes that the actions of the Obama White House have blocked any investigation into his activities while on the board of Freddie Mac from 2000-2001, and facilitated the cover up of potential malfeasance until the 10-year statute of limitations has run out.

The purpose of this letter is to connect the dots to establish both the conduct of Mr. Emanuel and those working with him to thwart inquiry, and to support your acting speedily so that the statute of limitations does not run out before the Justice Department is able to empanel a grand jury.

The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is negotiating to double the commitments to Fannie and Freddie for a total of $800 billion by December 31, in order to avoid the congressional approval that would be needed after that date. But there currently is no Inspector General exercising independent oversight of these entities. Acting Inspector General Ed Kelly was stripped of his authority earlier this year by the Justice Department, relying on a loophole in a bill Mr. Emanuel cosponsored and pushed through Congress shortly before he left for the Obama White House. This effectively ended Mr. Kelly’s investigation into what happened at Fannie and Freddie.

Since that time, despite multiple warnings by Congress that having no independent Inspector General for a federal agency that oversees $6 trillion in mortgages is a serious oversight, the Obama White House has not appointed one.

We recognize that these are extremely serious accusations, but the stonewalling by Mr. Emanuel and the Obama White House has left us with no other redress. A 2003 report by Freddie Mac’s regulator indicated that Freddie Mac executives had informed the board of their intention to misstate the earnings to insure their own bonuses during the time Mr. Emanuel was a director (as an appointee of the Clinton administration). But the Obama White House refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request from the Chicago Tribune for those board minutes on the grounds that Freddie Mac was a “commercial” entity, even though it was wholly owned by the government at the time the request was made.

If the Treasury approves the $800 billion commitment to Fannie and Freddie by the end of the year, it will mean that under the influence of Rahm Emanuel, the Obama White House is moving a trillion-dollar slush fund into corruption-riddled companies with no oversight in place. This will allow Fannie and Freddie to continue to purchase more toxic assets from banks, acting as a back-door increase of the TARP without congressional approval.

Before the Obama White House commits any more money to Fannie and Freddie, we call on the Public Integrity Section in the Justice Department to begin an investigation into the cause of Fannie and Freddie’s conservatorship, into Rahm Emanuel’s activities on the board of Freddie Mac (as a Clinton appointee) including any violations of his fiduciary duties to shareholders, into the decision-making behind the continued vacancy of Fannie and Freddie’s Inspector General post, and into potential public corruption by Rahm Emanuel in connection with his time in Congress, in the Obama White House, and on the board of Freddie Mac.

We also call for the immediate appointment of an Inspector General with a complete remit to go after this information.

Signers of this letter come from differing political ideologies. One, the conservative head of a transparency foundation, the other, publisher of a liberal political blog. But we make common cause today out of grave concern for the future of our country in the wake of corruption-riddled bailouts.

These bailouts continue to rob Main Street to benefit Wall Street, and, because of that, we together demand the resignation of Mr. Emanuel, a man who has steadfastly worked to obstruct both oversight and inquiry into the matter. Rahm Emanuel’s conflicts of interest render him far too compromised to serve as gatekeeper to the President of the United States. We will lay out the details further below, and are available at your earliest convenience to meet with you directly.

Sincerely,

Jane Hamsher
Grover Norquist

The Con of the Decade
Of Two Minds Blog | 7/8/2010 | Charles Hugh Smith
FR Posted by delapaz

The Federal government could potentially inflate away these trillions in Treasuries, buy enough elected officials to force austerity so inflation remains tame. In essence, these private banks and corporations now own the revenue stream of the Federal government and its taxpayers.

Neat con, and the marks (us taxpayers) will never understand how "saving our financial system" led to their servitude to the very interests they bailed out. The circle is now complete: in "saving our financial system," the public borrowed trillions and transferred the money to private Power Elites, who then buy the public debt with the money swindled out of the taxpayer.

Then the taxpayers transfer more wealth every year to the Power Elites/Plutocracy in the form of interest on the Treasury debt. The Power Elites will own the debt that was taken on to bail them out of bad private bets: this is the culmination of privatized gains, socialized risk.

In effect, it's a Third World/colonial scam on a gigantic scale: plunder the public treasury, then buy the debt which was borrowed and transferred to your pockets. You are buying the country with money you borrowed from its taxpayers. No despot could do better. (Excerpt) Read more at oftwominds.com ...

SO HOW DID GANGSTER GOVERNMENT SCAM $14 TRILLION INTO THEIR POCKETS? Bernie Madoff used the time-tested Wall Street MO----creating a supersecret labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and financial entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth......with assets and businesses in multiple places overseas that hid thievery, money launderering and tax evasion.

"Wall Street Rahm, take a bow" (remember that Emanuel took contol of Dept of the Treasury activities when he went to the WH).

BACKSTORY January 2007 USA Today reported on Emanuel and his wife’s tax-exempt "foundation" (operated out of their Chicago residence).

The tax-exempt "Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Trust" was formed in 2002, when the 4-term Chicagoan was first elected to Congress. Rahm and his wife, Amy Rule (a convert to Judaism), are its only donors.

Rahm doesn’t pay any property taxes and he gets income tax write-offs----this allows his kids to attend school tuition-free and allows him to expense a lot of personal expenses.

Rahm also "donates" to his Foundation (thus shielding income from taxes); his wife apparently draws a salary from the foundation. They reported having $2,900 on hand at the end of 2005, receiving $34,000 from Emanuel and donating more than $31,000. Rahm also donated $25,000 to his Synagogue.

Emanuel’s tax-exempt foundation gave nearly $25,000 to the Anshe Emet synagogue and school [a private school that Rahm's children attend], and $15,000 to the foundation run by former president Bill Clinton. It also gave $14,000 to Marwen, a Chicago charity that provides art classes and other educational help to low-income children. Ms Rule is on Marwen’s board.

=====================================

Chicago pols collude with the Tax Collector to "delist" their properties.....to shield pols from paying taxes.

AMNESTY WHORE GUTIERREZ A TAX CHEAT The same Chicago tax assessor that finagled Rahm's taxes, once carried the home of amnesty whore and a former cab driver Cong Luis Guiterrez (D-Ill) on the tax rolls as a "vacant lot."

The assessor argued---- after the story became public----that Guiterrez should not be penalized for a "clerical error" ....

This came after Guiterrez paid minimal taxes for years and years...... b/c Guiterrez' home was listed on the tax rolls as a vacant lot.

Cong Gutierrez (D-Ill) has made a career out of helping illegal aliens drain whatever they could out of America.

Good chance Gutierrez was aiding and abetting govt financial fraud and ID fraud. How many fake ID's were used to bilk govt agencies?

City investigating program that helped daughter of Gutierrez D-ILL---The Chicago Sun Times | May 4, 2010 |

The City of Chicago's inspector general has opened an investigation into an affordable-housing program under which U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez's daughter was able to buy a condominium at a discount, despite family income of more than $93,000, and resell it after 14 months at a 55 percent profit.(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...

FBI agents ask about Gutierrez, developer The FBI has interviewed City Hall employees and Chicago aldermen (a former cab driver) about U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez's ties to a corrupt developer, according to records and interviews that raise new questions about the congressman amid an ongoing federal investigation.

A former alderman convicted in the investigation told FBI agents that Gutierrez boasted of helping his longtime political supporter Calvin Boender obtain a lucrative zoning change for a development on the city's West Side. Another alderman told agents this year she thought Gutierrez was going to buy a home in the development. (Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ..

In effect, it's a Third World/colonial scam on a gigantic scale: plunder the public treasury, then buy the debt which was borrowed and transferred to your pockets. You are buying the country with money you borrowed from its taxpayers. No despot could do better.

It's a revolving door between the government and cronyism (mostly in high finance or lobbying, as these "professions" don't need special expertise or "what you know," but rather expertise in "who you know")...

That's how the crony socialism works and Clintons' and Obama's operatives are particular experts in the political-financial revolving door (e.g., Rahm Emanuel, Thomas "Mack" McLarty, Steve Rattner, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick etc. etc.)

"Power in the money, money in the power.
Minute after minute, hour after hour...
... Keep spending most our lives
Living in a gangsta's paradise." - Coolio.

From Ex-subprime lender leading HAMP efforts - NYP, by Catherine Curan, 2010 December 26

As many as 13 million homes will be lost to foreclosure by 2012, but troubled borrowers seeking help from Uncle Sam are sent straight to the very same mortgage industry insiders who led the country into crisis.
It's hard to believe Uncle Sam would choose him, but Bruce Paradis, chairman of the nonprofit Homeownership Preservation Foundation -- whose hotline number is included in every denial notice sent to borrowers rejected from the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP -- knows all about troubled mortgages because his lending company originated nearly $70 billion in bad loans from 2004-2006 under his watch.
That's right -- the former CEO of notorious subprime lender GMAC's Residential Capital arm is charged with leading a key component of the Treasury department's response to the mortgage morass.
The rest of the board is packed with GMAC veterans and other financial industry insiders. More than $1 million in industry funds supports the $13 million Homeownership Preservation Foundation, which has a contract from the Treasury Department. ..... < snip >
..... The HAMP numbers that are available from the COP paint a picture of failure so dismal that noted credit expert and Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin is calling for HAMP to be shut down. Begun in early 2009 with a goal of preventing 3 million to 4 million foreclosures, HAMP will prevent only 700,000 to 800,000 foreclosures, according to the latest COP estimates. That's just 6 percent of the 12 million tidal wave. Even worse, re-default rates are high and rising. ..... < snip >

Unbelievable? It would be... in a normal world; but in the socialist "gangsta's paradise" it ain't.

Bruce Paradis, chairman of the nonprofit Homeownership Preservation Foundation -- whose hotline number is included in every denial notice sent to borrowers rejected from the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP -- knows all about troubled mortgages because his lending company originated nearly $70B in bad loans from 2004-2006. That's right ----- the former CEO of notorious subprime lender GMAC's Residential Capital arm is now leading a key component of the Treasury department's response to the mortgage morass. The rest of the HAMP board is packed with GMAC veterans and other financial industry insiders.......the $13 million Homeownership Preservation Foundation has a contract from the Treasury Dept.

Hmmmmm-----looks like the Ohaha insiders are looking to protect their stash----and Cousin Brucie is sure the right man for the job.

THEY'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN TO STEAL The crooks got (ahem) "$13 million" to operate as a tax-exempt Foundation.

Hope Brucie keeps all of the receipts----we're gonna want to know where all the money went.

As the CIA says---the crooks always leave a paper trail.

Rahm Emanuel's a quadruple threat:

He's a Wall Street player who made millions on the street. He worked for Goldman/Sachs AT THE SAME TIME he worked for Clinton. He was appointed to the board of Fannie Mae by Clinton when billions went missing.

Rahm's brother Ari is perfect----a major Hollywood player---he grabbed power at the William Morris talent agency. Ari is kindly called aggressive and temperamental -- the inspiration for Jeremy Piven's wildly popular "Entourage" character, Ari Gold. Ari took over an unbelievable brand for nothing and crushed the internal competition in a matter of days.

Rahm Emanuel sired from a perfect family and is fiercely loyal to them. He was born to an Israeli doctor (who was a member of the Irgun terrorist group). His mom is a Chicago native. Rahm speaks Hebrew and fondly recalls summering each year in Israel as a child – and once served in the Israeli military as a volunteer.

As WH COS, Rahm appointed his perfect brother, Dr Zeke, to manage medicare/Aid billions, and the O/Care billions that will soon roll in.

Here's Rahm on the Capitol steps on Inauguration Day.

Here's Rahm shedding a tear at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
The family went to Israel to have their son (right) bar mitzvahed.

I wonder what would have happened to Rham if he thumbed his nose at the Wailing Wall?

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