So let me get this straight . . . Back in October Senator Ted Stevens was convicted on 7 counts of trying to hide more than $250,000 in free home renovations and other "gifts" from a wealthy oil contractor. Sarah Palin, then Republican VP candidate told CNBC during an interview that Stevens should resign and allow the state to elect someone else. Low and behold, Ted Stevens appeals and is no longer a convicted felon. He is exonerated by Attorney General Eric Holder and the new Obama DOJ due to a most screwed up FBI and Bush Justice Department investigation - - - a Justice Department Stevens himself called highly "corrupt and illiterate" that was run by a bunch of "Kindergarten Cops". This is the same Department of Justice that had been marked by highly politically managed prosecutions of white collar crime through its Public Integrity Section, while looking the other way when it came to the Enron's of the world and corporate corruption - - - not too mention politically discriminatory hiring practices of United States Attorney's, AND the unprecedented midterm dismissal of 7 US Attorney's in December of 2006, those having been targeted for dismissal in an effort to impede investigations of Republican politicians; while others were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters. Bush Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales described the affair as "an overblown personnel matter." This was apparently not the case as Gonzales wound-up resigning one year later. http://gawker.com/5193794/ How ironic that Steven's helped vote to confirm Bush's Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. Anyway, Obama's new Atty General comes aboard in February and realizes how screwed up the DOJ is, and admits defeat and drops all charges against Stevens. Now, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin says that Ted Stevens deserves another shot at his Senate seat. So, Palin is advocating a "do-over" Special Election that would pit Stevens against recently elected Alaskan Senator, Mark Begich. "Alaskans deserve to have a fair election not tainted by some announcement that one of the candidates was convicted fairly of seven felonies, when in fact it wasnât a fair conviction." So, Palin has joined the state GOP in calling for U.S. Senator Mark Begich to resign and run against former Senator Ted Stevens in a special election. Never mind that Begich was elected by the people of Alaska, and not appointed to his Senate seat. Gee, I don't seem to recall that Americans got a "do-over" when Dubya's approval rating collapsed into the "cellar" during his second term. THAT Palin logic. It's something else!!!
The thing I found most puzzling about the Ted Stevens thing was that he was a Republican Senator and he was being targeted during Bush's term. And frankly, Mr Bridge-To-Nowhere or not, the GOP was having a hard enough time already keeping seats in the Senate. Why hunt Stevens when there were plenty of Democrats in the forest? Then someone posted this article on ET: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/ and there was an odd mention of Stevens in it - "None other than disgraced senator Ted Stevens was the poor sap who made the unpleasant discovery that if Congress didn't like the Fed handing trillions of dollars to banks without any oversight, Congress could apparently go fuck itself â or so said the law. When Stevens asked the GAO about what authority Congress has to monitor the Fed, he got back a letter citing an obscure statute that nobody had ever heard of before: the Accounting and Auditing Act of 1950. The relevant section, 31 USC 714(b), dictated that congressional audits of the Federal Reserve may not include "deliberations, decisions and actions on monetary policy matters." The exemption, as Foss notes, "basically includes everything." According to the law, in other words, the Fed simply cannot be audited by Congress. Or by anyone else, for that matter." Weird coincidence.
Good overall article. However, you don't honestly think that Ron Paul hasn't been all over the Federal Reserve and their lack of accountability? He questions the Fed's autonomy every chance he gets during Fed testimony. The Fed has tremendous autonomy. It always has. This is nothing new. It was able to "backstop" JP Morgan's takeover of Bear and inject billions into AIG due to various little known banking acts from the days of the Depression. To this day, "Joe 6-pack" is still unable to comprehend just how powerful the Fed is. But he's not alone. Most of Congress is clueless as well. The article makes claims about "secret" Fed "activity" that has eclipsed the TARP program in terms of its influence on the Economy . . . Duh. They had an $800 billion dollar balance sheet for years that has now eclipsed $3 trillion. They make loans to "good" banks based on collateral and charge those banks interest. This seems to go conveniently unnoticed by the "conspiracy" crowd. AIG is obviously not a bank ( and an exception ), but given the TRILLIONS of DOLLARS of counter-party risk out there attached to their CDS contracts, Bernanke felt that he had to inject billions into AIG in order to avoid a global banking meltdown. Even people like Republican Senator Lyndsey Graham have trouble comprehending this. Moreover, people like Vermont liberal Bernie Sanders thinks that banks just show up at the discount window and "secretly" get FREE MONEY. He has no idea what he's talking about, no concept of COLLATERAL, nor has he any understanding of Fed Operations. It's amazing how "dumb" people in Congress can be. That is unless you are Phil Gramm and you totally "gamed" the system when you spearheaded legislation called "The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000" without even a committee hearing or recorded vote back in December of 2000 to give birth to the OTC unregulated CDS market and the likes of Enron and WTI crude trading overseas via ICE in London and Dubai without any CFTC oversight or regulation. Imagine that. Allowing UNITED STATES WTI crude to trade overseas electronically with no position limits, no regulation, no oversight, no nothing. Thank you Phil Gramm. And John McCain actually made him his economic advisor. Unbelievable!
And here is another article just as disturbing: "The Quiet Coup" http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice "The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our governmentâa state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMFâs staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, weâre running out of time."