Jun 03 2010
The End Of The Obama Era
I really hate to see things end horribly. Yes, some people sow what they seed, and in the case of our naive and arrogant President he has no one to fault but himself (and maybe those voters who put him in this spot). But you hate to see what was a moment of hope and success end in scandal and ruin.
Like I said many times, I did not want to see this President fail. I wanted to see him grasp the seriousness of his challenges and learn and grow into the job. Â All first term Presidents have this test to face. But this President is surrounded by power trippers who are also young and naive, and the combined inexperience made surviving this test improbable.
What has me so sure this presidency is over? Was it the endless economic mess and the concurrent joblessness? Was it the destruction of our nation’s premier health care system? Was it his shining incompetence with the Gulf Oil spill? Yes and no. All these things led up to the final straw. The kicker is going to be the felony bribes his administration made to Representative Sestek (PA) and State House Speaker Romanoff (CO) to leave senate primaries.
As I noted previously, the White House excuse floated last Friday on the Sestak incident is simply a signed confession of guilt:
Here is a key passage from the WH memo containing two clear sentences:
[1] The White House Chief of Staff enlisted the support of former President Bill Clinton who agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board. [2] Congressman Sestak declined the suggested alternatives, remaining committed to his Senate candidacy.
In legal matters clarity is everything, and this one paragraph says it all. In sentence [1] we have the admission that Rahm Emanuel ‘enlisted‘ (voluntarily and knowingly) former Bill Clinton to raise ‘options of service‘ (job offers – plural) related to panels only the President can nominate a member to (Rahm can’t, Clinton can’t). That is the offer of the bribe.
The admission this was a bribe requiring a quid pro quo is found in the second sentence. The WH clearly stated Rep ‘declined the suggested alternatives‘, with the result being Sestak remained committed to his Senate candidacy. So therefore, if the WH offers had been accepted, Sestak would not have remained in the Senate race. QED: Bribe offered and declined, according to White House Council.
Ed Morrissey notes that it has come to light there was no board Sestak could serve on as a sitting Congressman, therefore even this formal excuse from White House Counsel is really just a poorly crafted lie.
Quite obviously, the stories offered by everyone don’t add up. The notion that anyone would insult the intelligence of a retired Admiral and sitting House member by offering them an unpaid job that would require their retirement from politics in order to give up a Senate bid is nothing but pure fantasy. This administration couldn’t even build a cover story that works and get its fibs straight.
Worse news broke last night, the Sestak bribe was not the only incident.
Administration officials dangled the possibility of a job for former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff last year in hopes he would forgo a challenge to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, administration officials said Wednesday, just days after the White House admitted orchestrating a similar job offer in the Pennsylvania Senate race.
These officials declined to specify the job that was floated or the name of the administration official who approached Romanoff, and said no formal offer was ever made. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not cleared to discuss private conversations.
More details here. I am curious as to how these ‘administration officials’ think leaking another incident of bribery will help with this growing scandal? Are these people fed up and jumping ship or  or are they awkwardly floating trial balloons? The law does not have a discriminator on ‘formal offers‘ – whatever that means. In the Romanoff incident the former state Speaker was quite clear about where his paying job offer was (USAID), so there is no ‘unpaid advisory panel’ spin that can work in this case.
Update: This article is even more damning on the Romanoff deal, with even dumber spin from the White House:
Romanoff said in a statement Wednesday night that he was contacted by Messina last fall and told that the White House would support Bennet in the primary. When he said he would seek the nomination anyway, Messina “suggested three positions that might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race,” Romanoff said. “He added that he could not guarantee my appointment to any of these positions.”
Romanoff added: “At no time was I promised a job, nor did I request Mr. Messina’s assistance in obtaining one.”
…
Messina sent Romanoff job descriptions for three positions: an administrator for Latin America and Caribbean; the chief of the Office of Democracy and Governance; and the director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.
Yeah, no job offer here! – end update:
When you have two independent incidents of the same clumsy and illegal act there is no getting around the conclusion. The Obama administration is so inept they can’t even do sleazy politics right. Which will be their undoing.
Obama’s reputation is in tatters. It is now going to be every politician for themselves. Democrats have careers and dreams to salvage from this mess. The administration has run out of political capitol. No successful pol who can escape the coming Obama implosion in public opinion is going sit around and be sucked under. Maybe if the President had some successes behind him the he could fight his way through the job-bribe scandals. But he is too damaged to make it through this kind of scandal.
It really is sad to see endings like this.
Update: As I predicted, the Dems are jumping ship:
They toppled Hillary Clinton, crushed John McCain and managed to get the first black man elected president of the United States.
But now a series of recent missteps just keeps getting worse for Barack Obama’s political operation, already under fire from inside the party for losing its golden touch.
The second-guessing of the White House political shop — which is coming in part from top House Democrats — was sparked anew late Wednesday by news that the White House tried and failed to coax another Democratic Senate candidate out of making his race by dangling administration jobs in front of him.
…
Taken together, Sestak and Romanoff cases suggest a White House team that is one part Dick Daley, one part Barney Fife.
Read more:Â http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38067.html#ixzz0pmyYKvwk
No surprise at all. You only get so many chances before people finally walk away.
OT: being a big fan of private space exploration, thought I would share this streaming video if SpaceX’s attempt to launch Falcon 9
http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php
It is currently in a countdown hold.
SpaceX Falcon 9 has achieved orbit. Private space exploration takes another step forward.
And while Falcon 9 has achieved a new high, Helen Thomas – ever faithful representative of the Left who lets her true views shine forth – reaches a new low.
I really never thought I would live to see the day when Nazi ideology and Nazi rhetoric would become fashionable in the US – but here it is, unvarnished and right out into the open.
And that’s not meant to be a gratuitous slur, because this is the real thing – Helen Thomas wants a Final Solution to that pesky Jewish Problem. Now we see whether the rest of the Washington Establishment just smiles and nods and accepts this kind of thing as normal, polite discourse.
Obama won’t say a word, of course, because deep down this is what he wants, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQcQdWBqt14&feature=player_embedded
Non judicial walkaways? Please, that does not mean you can just blow off a loan or a mortgage and go your merry way. It is like in a divorce, you can find your spouse “harmless”, that is you can ask them for nothing..but if that marriage dissolves your creditors are not bound by that..I have known people who divorced someone and left the state and were called back into the state to answer to a bankruptcy court even though they did not even live on the property anymore.
They may only get part of their money, they may not get the full value of the loan if it is way over market value, but the idea that people can just walk away from a contract {and that is what a mortgage is} without repercussions is just fantasy. I would not advise it.
Helen Thomas is such a disgrace.
And as for Turkey, come on, these are the people responsible for the Armenian genocide…they have been killing Kurds for years and years, in fact they even shelled northern Iraq not long ago to take out some Kurdish rebel bases. I did not see them calling the UN in to settle their disputes..no sir.
I also do not recall the Israelis ever bothering Europe or Turkey, so maybe the EU and Turkey should mind their own damn business.
Certainly it should come as no surprise that the Obama regime has been little more than a relentless machine of arrogance, thuggery and criminality. What shocks me is the fact that the latest string of Capone style tactics have actually been REPORTED by the very people most responsible for the man-child’s current gig. When the NY Times exposes a felony committed by a long-time heart throb, you KNOW something must be up.
Terrye, you obviously don’t live in a non-recourse state. But believe me, in the pure non-recourse states all a homeowner has to do is give the keys back to the bank and he walks away free and clear, with the debt wiped off of his record.
No kidding.
It’s not a good law – but that’s the way it is in many places.
Now in states like Texas and California, the lender does have the *right* to seek a deficiency judgment – but this requires a separate lawsuit, and the defendant (homeowner) has the right to demand a jury trial. Since most juries tend to sympathize with homeowners and hate Banks, these are *very* hard to win, and unless the defaulted homeowner has some significant assets elsewhere, it simply isn’t worth the effort for a Bank to spend 6 months fighting a jury trial that the bank will probably lose, anyways. So it is very rare for these to be filed.
Btw, how a good attorney beats a bank in court – hammer over and over how the bank improperly induced the poor, unsophisticated homeowner into overpaying for the loan. There’s always some dirt, some fudge mystery charges that will turn up to make the case. Sometimes a jury will even make the bank pay the defaulting homeowner for the inconvenience. Believe it.
Even better, there have been cases where significant paperwork is missing or not signed, and the court has simply canceled the loan and handed the property to the homeowner free and clear, with the bank taking nothing.
Don’t worry about the bank, though, they just put in a call to Geithner and Bernanke and those two make up the difference in one of those overnight transactional deals that you hear talked about but that no one is allowed to acknowledge openly. Where does that money come from? Ahh, that’s where The “MAGIC” happens!
And this is how the whole crazy calliope carousel of our current housing market is madly spinning it’s way to destruction. And when it collapses – well, in financial terms the word “Singularity” would not be a bad description.
btw – Turkey is using the Jews in exactly the same way that Hitler did in the 30’s. The Turkish government needs a convenient scapegoat to justify abandoning Europe and starting their own Nuclear program, and the Jews have been the go-to scapegoats for a couple of thousand years now. Fascism is Back.
We’re rapidly approaching the event horizon now.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me–
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
http://www.christianethicstoday.com/Issue/009/First%20They%20Came%20for%20the%20Jews%20By%20Franklin%20H%20Littell_009_29_.htm
I never understood their rationale behind their hatred toward Jews….I remember reading about this hatred towards the Jews and the evilness in capitalism in the school history books. Now some of us know better.
Now we have the “reformed” Jews that are apathetic to this hatred toward Judaism.
C’mon, lurker, there’s no communists, socialists, trade unionists or Jews in America. What do we have to worry about. And who are ‘they’ ? If they would have stopped at the trade unionists, they may have had a better fate in the history books.
Helen Thomas is really scary. Those youtube links should have warning labels. I am sure to have nightmares
WWS:
I have seen some states listed as non recourse states when they are in fact recourse states. I think there is some confusion on this…but even if you hand back the keys you don’t just walk away. Try to get a car loan or any other kind of credit after something like that. The point is that there are repercussions to deliberately destroying your credit and walking away from a contract and a debt.
I had a real estate license and I saw houses set in forclosure for years, tied up in paper work, falling apart and virtually untouchable. I also saw people come to me and want to buy a house and there was no way they were getting the money. They had already screwed themselves too thoroughly for that. Then of course certain allowances were made to help people out etc, and now the credit is getting tight again. So the idea that people can just walk away from something like this and not be hurt by it in the future is not a sure thing…not to mention the fact that it is dishonest and it hurts all those people out there who did not get in over their heads.
There is a house I know that sold 3 years ago for a little under $650K. That was about the going rate for homes in that neighborhood at that time. A friend of mine bought one in the same neighborhood several years before that for a little over $400K. That house that was $640K just sold last week … for under $200K. That house would never be worth $640K again in our lifetime unless we see massive inflation.
At some point you have an obligation to yourself not to be stupid and pay $640K (plus interest that runs the total paid to well over a million bucks) for something worth only $199K.
Paying $100 for a $20 bill is stupid. Yeah, you agreed to buy it when it was a $100 bill. But at some point the right thing to do is cut your loss.