Paulson And The Bailout

  The financial bailout, that is. The Bush Crime Family has once again bent the taxpayer over and rammed the big one straight up our asses. Paulson needs to be replaced and investigated for activities which could/should include fraud.

   I do like the following idea.

WASHINGTON, November 17 - Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today he will introduce legislation to stop the release of a $350-billion second round of the Wall Street bailout.

Sanders, who voted against the $700-billion package Congress approved in October, said he has serious concerns about how the Bush administration and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are spending the bailout money that was already released.  He also said it was unacceptable that the oversight provisions in the bill were ignored. Source

  And then there is this from the Financial Times

A senior Republican senator is seeking an investigation into potential conflicts of interest among former Goldman Sachs executives serving at the US Treasury and whether any officials exceeded their authority by implementing a controversial tax change without the approval of Congress.

Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the Senate finance committee, asked Eric Thorson, inspector-general of the Treasury, to investigate the "independence" of several Treasury officials who formerly worked at Goldman Sachs and serve as advisers to Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, the former chief executive of the Wall Street bank.

Mr Grassley said in a letter to Mr Thorson that there was reason to be concerned that “relationships” between the officials and board members at two merging banks, Wells Fargo and Wachovia, gave the “appearance of preferential treatment”.

Mr Grassley singled out Robert Steel, a former Goldman official who worked under Mr Paulson at the Treasury before he became chief executive of Wachovia.

Mr Grassley is specifically concerned with a change in the tax code the Treasury initiated in late September that saved some institutions tens of billions of dollars and paved the way for Wells Fargo's acquisition of Wachovia.

Technorati Tags: Henry Paulson,Wall Street,Bailout,James Inhofe,Bernie Sanders

Rasmussen Polling: Obama Gets Good Marks

  Rasmussen

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval Index for Sunday shows Barack Obama enjoying a +19 rating.

More voters are concerned that Obama will bring too much change to the nation rather than too little. Most Democrats worry there will be too little change while Republicans and unaffiliated voters hold the opposite view.

Overall, 59% of voters somewhat or strongly approve of Obama’s performance so far while 38% disapprove. Michelle Obama also receives positive reviews.

  So why are they polling on Obama's performance when the only thing that he has done thus far is to pick his cabinet?

             The number of voters who say the nation is heading in the right direction and confidence in the War on Terror have also increased. A plurality of voters believe that Obama will govern as a partisan Democrat rather than on bipartisan basis.

While Republicans are disappointed in last week’s results, 78% believe it’s likely that the next President after Obama will be from the GOP.

Technorati Tags: Rasmussen,Polls,Barack Obama,Democrats,Republicans