Obama And McCain Hold Meeting

   Joint Statement issued by Obama and McCain.

"At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time."

"It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family," it said. "We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy and protecting our nation's security."

  Future White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was also present, as was close friend of John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham.

    Now. I can understand why Emanuel would be at this meeting, but Senator Graham?  This criminal has no business being anywhere near President-elect Obama, or any Democrat, for that matter. It is part of Graham's genius which has brought on our financial banking difficulties in the first place. WTF?

    I do question Obama having this man present at this meeting. I'm also hoping that Obama doesn't take any of Graham's advice. If he does? We're screwed.

   As an added bonus, you can learn more about senator Graham by reading this NYTimes article.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,John McCain,Rahm Emanuel,Lindsey Graham,President Elect,Economy

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