We’re Supposed to Give Obama™ Credit for Doing This?

A member of Obama’s economic advisory team got caught with his hand in the cookie jar by an ABC reporter, and we are supposed to praise Obama ™ for putting the brakes on the deal?

Gaza 2009: We Will Never Forget

Obama Saved Us? Are You Kidding? That $50 Million Plane Was Going to Be Used By One of His Economic Advisers

by Scott Creighton

In the mad rush to find something, anything, to make the complicit Obama ™ administration look like they are delivering on the “Change” they promised, many faux-progressive sites are reveling in the $50 million dollar CitiGroup “Plane the Wasn’t” deal, as if Obama-God himself, reached down from the heavens and smote the pen right out of their hands before they could sign off on delivery; for the good of the people.

It’s a lie.

How do I know? It was going to be Richard Parsons’ plane. Who is he? Richard Parsons is currently a member of Obama’s economic advisory team and has been announced to become Chairman of CitiGroup in about a week or so.

Yes, that is Mr. Parsons right there next to Emanuel and Volker and since he is taking the reigns at CitiGroup in a few weeks, that would have been his plane to tool around in.

Let’s get right down to it; no need to mince words here. Jake Tapper broke the story on ABC News.  Jake Tapper then wrote and contacted people like Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi about it. Having gotten nothing from them, he asked the White House spokesman Gibbs about the situation in front of the White House Press Corps and thus the death of the Falcon deal was set in motion.

So Jake Tapper saved this country $50 million (at least for now while all eyes are upon the deal) not your precious Obama ™.   Let’s delve a little deeper, shall we?

What is CitiBank? Well, CitiBank is one the largest financial institutions in the world thanks to the 1999 gutting of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 by President Clinton and his boy Larry Summers who is now head of the National Economic Council for President Barack Obama.

Richard Parsons will be replacing Robert Rubin, named by Marketwatch as one of the “10 most unethical people in business”^, as Chairman of CitiGroup and Rubin is also in that group picture of Obama’s economic advisory team.

Parsons’ himself is pretty well connected. He owns a home on the Rockefeller estate. He used to work for Nelson Rockefeller and had Happy Rockefeller as a client of his at one time.  Laurence Rockefeller got him a job on Time Warner’s board of directors which he eventually turned into a CEO gig.  He is a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and he sits with David Rockefeller on the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

So… that’s pretty much the size of that. A member of Obama’s economic advisory team got his hand caught in the cookie jar by an ABC reporter, and we are supposed to praise Obama ™ for putting the brakes on the deal?

The capitalist market and Obama’s stimulus plan

by Jerry White, WSWS

Even before the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package comes to a vote, the rapidity and scale of job losses in the US makes it clear that it will be woefully inadequate. On Monday alone, corporations including Caterpillar, Pfizer, Home Depot, SprintNextel and GM, announced 74,000 new job cuts.

Even if the White House were to achieve its aim of creating or saving 3-4 million jobs over the next two years, it would not make up for job losses that could be twice as large by the end of 2010. The pace of job-cutting has sharply accelerated since the end of 2008—a year that saw 2.6 million jobs lost, the highest number since 1945.

The overriding principle of Obama’s plan is that nothing will be done that impinges on the wealth and prerogatives of America’s financial elite. He made this clear in his inaugural address when he hailed the “free market,” saying its “power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.” Meanwhile, the new president has dropped any mention of his campaign pledge to rescind Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

Bloody Monday: 74,000 layoffs announced in one day

On Monday, employers in the US and internationally announced tens of thousands of layoffs in an indication that the economic crisis is accelerating and spreading throughout the American and world economy—and far outpacing governmental measures to respond.

Caterpillar Inc., Pfizer Inc., SprintNextel, Home Depot Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Phillips Electronics, Corus Group, The Dutch bank ING…

[read the rest of the story, here]

AP: 9 in 10 execs at bailout banks remain on job

Bosses whose banks made risky loans are now counted on to save system

At banks that are receiving federal bailout money nearly nine out of every 10 of the most senior executives from 2006 are still on the job, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory and company documents.

Less fortunate are more than 100,000 bank employees laid off during a two-year stretch…

[read the rest of the story here]

Our Fading Rights; US Supreme Court says passenger can be frisked

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.

[read the rest here]