Via the American Conservative, this exchange between Rep. Alan Grayson and the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve:
Something to keep in mind while we hear about how the TARP funds are being paid back by some of the banks- TARP is such a small portion of the game.
Mr. Tactful
Stay classy, Rush.
http://tinyurl.com/l6lf7m
Robertdsc-iphone
Heckuva job, Benny B, Timmeh, & Barack.
TenguPhule
The hits just keep on coming today.
pharniel
i’ve had to be that mealy mouthed with clients. usually when our system has dicked them over hard and didn’t bother with the reach around.
the fact that the fed is doing it makes me want to neckpunch
KG
Can we institute Project Mayhem yet?
@1: Rush is right about one thing, Obama’s not a god. Of course, I don’t recall many supporters saying that he was. I remember that being said by folks within the Wingularity, but not by people with something that resembles a grasp on reality.
harlana pepper
Rush is such a gross, nasty “human being”, it really makes me sad that he would have a following of even one individual much less the pack of crazies who believe and repeat his bullshit verbatim. I had one unload on me yesterday in a shop, e.g., “Obama is to the left of Chavez” kind of crap. Also, “I’m never buying another GM car. They gave GM to the unions.” The fact that I nodded politely as if listening and pretending to understand a babbling toddler without losing my cool shows I’ve made great progress.
JM
IIRC, Lehman Brothers wasn’t bailed out because it was the first to go, and that the disaster that followed shaped the conventional wisdom we have now (i.e., that firms this large should not be allowed to fail).
She could have just said that.
pharniel
@JM: that’d open the fed for a lawsuit by the lehman share and bondholders or at least an attempt if nothing else.
joe from Lowell
TARP is the only part of the game being played with my money.
clone12
pharinel:
Jenet Yellin of SF Fed more or less say something along that line 2 months ago:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aycrixRelVc0
Punchy
She takes obfuscation and wanton obtuseness to an all-new level.
Cat Lady
Alan Grayson has been on this for a while like a dog with a bone. He seems to be determined to get somewhere with this line of questioning, and I wonder if he knows what the answers to his questions are. He asked Kohn of the Fed why the info about the recipients of Fed funds isn’t public, and basically was told shut up, that’s why. Stay tuned.
Edit: More evidence of his intelligence is this quote about Rush:
“I’m sorry Limbaugh called for harsh sentences for drug addicts while he was a drug addict. I’m also sorry that he’s bent on seeing America fail. And I’m sorry that Limbaugh is one sorry excuse for a human being.”
AhabTRuler
@Punchy: ORLY? After the Bushbots rolled through? I mean, Alberto Gonzales didn’t set the gold standard for “obfuscation and wanton obtuseness” at a level that this woman only dreams of?
I mean, I want accountability too, but your hyperbole got a little over-excited there.
Ecks
@Punchy: I don’t think it was obtuse. The whole conversation shorter:
Q: You’re in charge of the fed. Are you tracking the money being spent?
A: Eh, we’re looking into it. No answers yet.
[then repeat over and over with minor variation in the wording].
so either:
A) They have a report that will be forthcoming but isn’t quite ready, so they can’t talk yet.
B) They haven’t a clue and don’t want to admit it
C) They have a clue and are scared to death of the day they have to admit it, and will drag that day out as long as possible.
My money is on not A.
JoeTX
What can’t Rush and all the other right-wing blowhards get upset about THESE types of things. The raping and pillaging being done with the FED and Treasury’s blessing is something legit to get upset about. I guess their true job is to redirect us from all this truly outrageous stuff and complain about pink pony’s and flying spaghetti monsters.
AhabTRuler
@Ecks: I’ll take a little of all three options, thx.
Punchy
@Ecks: Her body language and pauses belie her relatively straight “we aint looked at it yet” repeats. She clearly pauses and reconsiders how much to disclose several times during the questioning. IMO.
arguingwithsignposts
@Punchy:
No, Donald Rumsfeld had her beat by several years (see “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”)
KG
@12: I don’t normally donate money to politicians – that’s less money for beer and steaks, as far as I’m concerned – but after seeing this stuff on Grayson, I like him.
@14: I’d put a dollar on A just because of how long the odds are. But the safe money is probably on C.
Max
Tonight, MSNBC is all over the Repub cry to boycott GM and Chrysler.
I think Ed Shultz is about to have a stroke on live tv.
Tweety did a good job in his interview with Morning Joke. If you didn’t see it, its worth watching the replay. He cornered Joey S. on the Schaivo mess.
demkat620
@Max: Yeah, the problem I have with Tweety is he seems ot think the most serious issue facing the US is the dysfunctional GOP. If we can just solve that problem, the rest will be easy.
Health Care, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jobs, the environment and our media spends 30 minutes of every hour worrying about how the GOP can get back in power.
jrg
No way Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman is an easy mark. Nope. She seems to have a handle on every penny.
I’m in the wrong line of work, because whoever’s supposed to be asking this lady for money must have the easiest, must lucrative job in the world.
kay
@Max:
Tonight, MSNBC is all over the Repub cry to boycott GM and Chrysler.
The GM and Chrysler boycott isn’t playing well here in the heartland. The local paper is running story after story on Indiana’s SCOTUS challenge to the sale to Fiat, and it’s all bewildered. They don’t know why the governor of Indiana is attempting to block the sale, and forcing liquidation.
The Indiana challenge failed , by the way. The SCOTUS just cleared the sale.
Rush doesn’t get it. The auto workers were told they were going back to work on June 29. They’ve already taken the new training. The local suppliers were hoping for a reprieve on layoffs. We have 17% unemployment here. The sale is a lifeline. Layoffs ripple. Every small business in this county would take a huge hit, and they’re reeling already. Rush wanted, what, 25% unemployment in the Great Lakes? WTF?
goblue72
Anyone know the story on Grayson? His bio has all the right Ivy-league creds of the post-Boomer meritocratic lefty elite (Bronx-borne, public school, Harvard College, Harvard Law & Kennedy School, tech entrepreneur). But he somehow – as a Democrat – won a seat in 2008 against a GOPosaur. In Florida. Orlando, Florida.
Anne Laurie
Just off the top of my head, of the six acquaintances I have in the Orlando area, four are retirees from the NY/NJ region, and two are IT people who graduated from MIT.
Wile E. Quixote
Somewhat peripherally related.
I was poking around the web this evening and read an article on The New Republic from 2001. While I was there I noticed that when you follow a link to an older article from TNR the links in the sidebars are to articles posted at the same time, which is different than other magazines in which the sidebar links are to current articles. Anyways I found this gem by one James J. Cramer on TNR’s website which was posted on the 4th of September, 2001 and printed on the 10th of September, 2001.
http://web.archive.org/web/20041223104844/www.tnr.com/091001/cramer091001.html
Coleman sounds like a completely clueless moron. She should be fired immediately. All she’s doing is blowing smoke up Grayson’s ass while trying to cover hers. Is there some rule etiquette that prevented Grayson from rephrasing his questions and asking something along the lines of: