I hope Obama only has Emanuel hanging around pursuant to that old doctrine "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." Remember, Emanuel was known as Wall Street's favorite politician, biggest recipient in Congress of Wall Street Money. And he reportedly told the Illinois Governor to just appoint a two-year seat warmer for Obama's Senate seat, because Emanuel apparently plans to run for that office. Will he use his position in the white house to make sure that the Financial Cartels know he's working for them, so they'll contribute generously to his imminent Senate campaign? Not so much a friend of the working people of this country, and apparently not a friend of Obama's. His ambition is obvious. The only question is whether he sees himself as King of Wall Street, or future President of the United States."I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other -"
(Shakespeare's MacBeth, Act I, Scene VII).
I don't mind ambition. But I have a big problem with somebody like Emanuel using his position in the White House to boast about himself, trash everyone around him, including the President and the entire White House team, help the Wall Street Criminals, harm the working people, and act in complete disregard to the fact that our country is in serious economic trouble, and we need every Democrat working together to save the country. We cannot afford to have small men with outsized egos using their energies to advance themselves at the expense of their fellow citizens. Let's leave that to the Republicans. And their leader, the deaf, dumb fat guy on the radio.
"Emanuel Says Obama Team Lost Message On Stimulus."
February 12, 2009, Wall Street Journal
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
"White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel conceded President Barack Obama and his team lost control of the message for selling their massive stimulus bill last week, fixating on bipartisanship while Republicans were savaging the legislation." (Note he blames the President and the President's team -- not himself).
According to the article, Emanuel says that the original stimulus proposal was drafted by a white house group but without sufficient details. He, luckily, came along to save the day, working all week-end, almost single-handedly: "On Friday night, after Senate Democratic leaders and three Senate Republicans struck a deal ensuring Senate passage, Mr. Emanuel, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag and others went to work on precisely the kind of detailed proposal many had been calling for, laboring through the weekend." Thank God Emanuel was there to save the country.
Emanuel also clearly advises his friends on Wall Street that he added some favorable provisions for their benefit:
[Inferentially, After Emanuel had to work all week-end to fix the screw-ups from the original draft] "On Monday morning, the president met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) to inform them after Senate passage, the White House would deliver a proposal that he hoped would form the bulk of a House-Senate compromise."
"That proposal contained some measures not included in either the House or Senate version, including an infrastructure bank that would leverage private investment to help fund construction projects across the country. That measure made it into the final package, Mr. Emanuel said." What exactly is he talking about? Last week-end, in a very short period of time, Rahm Emanuel and maybe a few other people changed the Stimulus Plan by, among other things, including a provision that will create "an infrastructure bank that would leverage private investment to help fund constructions projects."
My guess is this: "leverage" means somebody does not have much, if any money in a deal, but they plan to suck a lot of money out of the deal through various financial trickery. You know, like Wall Street always does. So, for example, it could work like this: (1) "private equity" (meaning Wall Street) agrees to fund a $5 million construction project such as another bridge to nowhere; (2) the government guarantees the funding; (3) Wall Street turns around and borrows $5 million from the federal government (meaning borrows taxpayers' money) for 0% interest per year, and (4) gives that money to insider construction companies also owned by Wall Street, who (5) end up grossly over-charging with change-orders so the government has to kick in even more money, and (6) Wall Street gets a 20% return on "their" investment through various fees, charges, interest, even though Wall Street never put a penny into the deal. That is what is called a "leveraged" transaction.
I don't know what it means. But it bothers me when a politician who is so obviously in the pocket of Wall Street takes control of a bill designed to help working people, and skews it so that it instead will help Wall Street. They're the ones who stole all our money, remember? But it gets better.
"To put skin in the game and get negotiators off of their hardened positions, Mr. Emanuel signaled up front that the president would give ground on his Making Work Pay signature tax proposal, a $500-per-worker tax cut to offset payroll taxes. That tax cut was ultimately pared back to $400, with an income eligibility cap lowered from $150,000 to $140,000."
Okay, let's talk about that. "Put skin in the game" is violent sports talk meaning somebody gets their face or body all cut up and blooded. So this wimpy little loafer-wearing Wall-Street loving dandy talks tough, and we know he uses the F word all the time, so he certainly and truly must really be a tough guy. But whose skin is he putting in the game? It turns out that what he meant by that is that he changed the law, over the week-end, to take more money from working people who already have lost everything.
Rahm Emanuel, Tough Guy, Wall Street dandy, does not think the working people in this country deserve a break. So he took $100 away from all of them. Money that might have bought shoes for their kids, or paid the gas bill, with maybe a little left over for a box of chocolates for Valentines Day. It's the skin off the little children of this country that Emanuel is talking about. Rahm Emanuel, tough guy, re-wrote the law to take more money away from the already sinking and desperate working people of this country.
"They also swallowed hard and accepted a $70 billion, temporary fix for the alternative minimum tax, even if it had marginal stimulative effect and would crowd out more beneficial proposals.
It was the price for getting the deal done, he said, conceding that with some of the compromises, there's going to be an impact on certain economic activities."
Who is the "they" that swallowed hard? Who came up with this $70 billion "fix" for the alternative minimum tax, and who benefits from it? And what is the fix? That will apparently be disclosed someday. But just in general, many rich people pay no taxes whatsoever through a variety of tax scams, and the alternative minimum tax provides that regardless of what all tax-avoidance schemes rich people may claim, they must pay a certain amount in taxes. I think the law should have been left as is, and people should be required to pay taxes. These are not poor people. So Rahm Emanuel apparently again used his position to help wealthier people while taking $100 away from the desperate workers.
"Mr. Emanuel owned up to one mistake: message. What he called the outside game slipped away from the White House last week, when the president and others stressed bipartisanship rather than job creation as they moved toward passing the measure."
Notice how clever Emanuel manages to blame President Obama and others for any perceived shortcomings. And again notice the sports analogies from this little tough guy: the "outside game slipped away from the White House" because "the president and others" made some mistakes. But not Rahm Emanuel, Son of Macbeth.
Actually, maybe he isn't the Son of MacBeth. Maybe he's Iago fluffing the pillows.
Hey Rahm. Here's another sports saying: there's no "Eye" in "TEAM."
If he worked for a private business, and he put out a story like this trashing his boss and co-workers, and taking credit for himself, he'd be fired. Which is exactly what Obama should do.
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