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Even Timmy is slowly realizing that the Administration will need to find a way to deflect Main Steet's anger at Goldman and keep it focused exclusively on Wall Street instead of equating it with Obama et al. The problem is - you make some very serious, tentacled enemies in the process. Geithner also flip flops on his prior position on the transaction tax. While before he was more opposed to the transaction tax than even Marla, his new "windsocked" position on the topic may now provide a challenge even to Nitric Oxide inhibitors. But here is the clincher for the...

A senior Chinese official who oversees the country's largest state-owned enterprises has publicly slammed Western investment banks for "maliciously" peddling complicated derivative products that caused huge losses for Chinese companies over the last year. In Beijing's strongest criticism on the matter to date, Li Wei, vice director of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, singled out Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup in a long and highly critical article in the latest issue of an official Communist party newspaper. The large losses suffered by Chinese state companies were "closely associated with the intentionally complex and highly leveraged...

When we heard the news that the city council in Salt Lake City just approved a "gay rights" ordinance (covering both "sexual orientation" and "gender identity"), we knew in our gut that Mitt Romney was behind it. Remember, he's running for President in 2012. He wouldn't want to appear a "bigot". Sure enough... A homosexual blog connected to an anti-Mormon documentary ("8: The Mormon Proposition") on the Proposition 8 defeat of "gay marriage" in California posted this: Sources close to those who called our cast and production team alerting us to the upcoming Mormon statement on discrimination say that Mormon...

A rather peculiar email attempts to address the question: “Where is Steve Poizner’s Campaign for Governor?” It’s a good question; where is the heartbeat, the pulse of media advertisements that cast mass messaging and marketing appeal? As we spill November into December, preparing to leave 2009 behind, there has been nothing from the self-made millionaire, and some people are beginning to ask pointed questions. Here is the only statewide incumbent candidate running inside of a heated Republican gubernatorial race, and Steve Poizner has yet to utilize one radio, television or major marketing tool since his announcement earlier in 2009. Today,...

A rather peculiar email attempts to address the question: “Where is Steve Poizner’s Campaign for Governor?” It’s a good question; where is the heartbeat, the pulse of media advertisements that cast mass messaging and marketing appeal? As we spill November into December, preparing to leave 2009 behind, there has been nothing from the self-made millionaire, and some people are beginning to ask pointed questions. Here is the only statewide incumbent candidate running inside of a heated Republican gubernatorial race, and Steve Poizner has yet to utilize one radio, television or major marketing tool since his announcement earlier in 2009. Today,...

Washington (CNN) – Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is engaged, a spokesman for the former president confirms to CNN. Chelsea Clinton will marry longtime boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky, said the spokesman, who added that reports earlier this summer about the engagement and wedding had been "completely false."

NEW YORK -- Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton has become engaged to her longtime boyfriend. Matt McKenna, a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton, confirmed that 29-year old Chelsea and investment banker Marc Mezvinsky got engaged on Thanksgiving and announced it in an e-mail to friends.

I never felt any longing to go to Orlando, Florida. What I felt, in traveling south to volunteer for the campaign of George W. Bush, was an obligation. Let me explain by first saying something about the critics of our president. A great many of them like to laugh at George Bush for not reading books and for being uninterested in visiting other countries. But a lot of those same people are guilty of the opposite offense. They prefer to read books and travel abroad rather than actually getting to know their own country face to face. These critics do...

Without a Prayer Subtitle: John McCain can't stand sucking up to the Christian right. Is this the end of the GOP's unholy alliance? "The Bible-thumpers, mainly working- and middle-class whites with limited educations from the landlocked states of the South and the Midwest, would seem to have had little in common with the archpriests of the neoconservative movement, who as it happened were mainly Jewish academics with fancy degrees from the East and West Coasts. But they did: They shared an almost equal disdain for democracy, free speech and learning, and paradise for both groups was an intellectually mute America...

When American citizens assert conservative principles, as they did last week with the tea party protests, it has a strange effect on liberals. They get angry. Some get in touch with their inner Beavis and Butthead, giggling endlessly over lame sexual innuendo. Some, like Rolling Stone political reporter Matt Taibbi, just get downright misogynistic. In a blog post on tax day, Taibbi sleazed conservative writer Michelle Malkin, who supported and wrote about the tea parties. “I have to say, I’m really enjoying this whole teabag thing,” Taibbi wrote. “It’s really inspiring some excellent daydreaming. For one thing, it’s brought together...

"Interesting piece. First, I want to congratulate you. You’re the first liberal media member I’ve seen who has actually acknowledged that a group of Obama supporters did in fact wear t shirts calling a woman a c*nt, in public and in front of her daughter no less. Now, does the fate of the Republic hand on such issues? No. Still, it was interesting to see the media pretend it never happened, straight out of some Ministry of Truth from Oceania. Somehow, if a group of McCain supporters had worn a t shirt to an Obama event calling him a n—-r,...

If you haven't read Matt Taibbi's recent Rolling Stone piece on Goldman Sachs, make sure to get your hands on it ASAP. It's a must read on how Goldman Sachs and the U.S. government work hand in glove to produce giant investment bubbles... bubbles that allow Goldman to work over investors for hundreds of billions of dollars. We don't think you can lay all the blame for the housing bubble and the tech bubble at Goldman's feet... but we do find it suspicious that a ton of high level government posts are staffed by Goldman employees. It's close to a...

Goldman Arming Itself? :-> This is a riot (well, ok, I might be a week - or a month early on that): Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the...

The role of fat cat climate profiteers' bundled contributions in so-called "climate legislation"We read in our morning paper that the Obama Administration promises that proposed carbon regulations will cost American families less than a dollar a day, and will reduce deaths from air pollution. The latter proposition is an outright fraud because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; our lungs always contain a far higher concentration than the air around any coal-fired power plant. Obama's dishonest efforts to equate carbon dioxide to genuine pollutants like sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and so on shows just how eager he is to...

“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank...

Investors face huge losses as Dubai abandons debt company Dubai has brought in Deloitte, the accountancy firm, to help restructure Dubai World David Robertson The Government of Dubai said today that it will not stand behind its wholly-owned subsidiary Dubai World, prompting fears that the company’s creditors could lose billions of dollars. Today's comment, from Abdulrahman al-Saleh, the director general of Dubai’s Department of Finance, effectively confirms that country does not have enough money to repay Dubai World’s $60 billion of liabilities. Deloitte, the accountancy firm, has been called in to restructure the giant business. Last week, the state-owned conglomerate...

On May 6, 2009, Meg Whitman, who is running for governor of California, told reporters that she is a huge fan of Obama green czar Van Jones.

Just days before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators finalized a water package, including an $11.1 billion bond issue, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned them not to do it. California is already deeply in debt, Lockyer warned, has huge budget deficits and can't afford another big bond issue. "The days of blithely heaping more and more debt burden on the general fund are over – at least they should be," Lockyer said. The earmark-laden bond issue, the package's single most controversial element, raises an interesting question: Just how deeply in debt are our state and local governments? The answer: No one...

Reversing his previously stated belief that none of the Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination have all three legs of the conservative stool, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that Mitt Romney is indeed a three-leg conservative. Describing the three legs as "national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives," Rush said, "The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way... The foreign policy crowd is obviously what it is. I don't think there's anybody on our side who doesn't care about national...

There is still confusion over whether Govenor Palin supports amnesty for illegal aliens. In this article read at Newsbusters, Palin does support a "pathway to citizenship" for illegal aliens. But what is not clear is if she supports a pathway to citizenship only "after" they return to their country of origin. And then, get in the back of the line to come to America "legally" for citizenship. Or, if she supports a pathway to citizenship while illegals are still here. Without first requiring them to return to there country of origin. Does anyone have an answer to that question? Excerpt...

SAN YSIDRO — With the San Ysidro border fence as her backdrop, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman spoke out on immigration policy issues yesterday, saying it is “simply not practical” to deport the estimated 12.5 million illegal immigrants living and working in the United States. The candidate, 53, said the solution is to find a mechanism that allows them to live here legally. “Can we get a fair program where people stand at the back of the line, they pay a fine, they do some things that would ultimately allow a path to legalization?” she asked. Whitman also urged tougher...

Thanksgiving produced many conversation, one surrounding the riches of eMeg, and if she is buying the governor's race for the GOP. There seems to be a new mantra that says, “Republicans are making a mistake in supporting wealthy candidates like Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial primary race; she is just too wealthy to be supported as a candidate.” After reading the bottom-line in the LA Times Wednesday, it seems that GOP voters are beside themselves. How can we vote for a woman who has, and spends, so much of her own money? More at the link...

As we have been reading the latest coverage on the AIG bailout from the SIGTARP report and the Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Congressional testimony, a nagging question remains unresolved: why did AIG get bailed out but the monoline bond insurers did not? . . . I hate to get sucked into the vampire squid line of thinking about Goldman, but the only explanation i can think of for why AIG got rescued and the monolines did not is because Goldman had significant exposure to AIG and did not have exposure to the monolines. When it became clear that AIG could face...

Big caveat right off the bat: PPP is the same polling firm that predicted a Hoffman landslide in NY-23. But (a) they had Mitt’s favorables comparable with Huckabee’s earlier in the year, so it’s not like their data’s historically been screwy, and (b) this isn’t just a one-month snapshot but a trend dating back to July.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Republican National Committee will announce Monday that veteran political strategist Alex Castellanos will assume a senior communications role at the committee, an RNC official tells CNN. (snip) "Now the RNC has a new focus and direction - the 2010 elections," Castellanos said when reached by telephone. "And I am happy to help."

A formidable coalition of 150 Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical leaders are calling on Christians in a new manifesto to reject secular authority – and even engage in civil disobedience – if laws force them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other ideas that betray their religious beliefs. On Friday, these leaders released a 4,700-word document – called the "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience." The document was signed by leaders ranging from evangelical leader Chuck Colson to two of the leading Catholic prelates in the U.S., Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. and Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New...

More than 150 Christian leaders are issuing a “call of conscience” to America-- urging them reaffirm their opposition to abortion, stem cell research and same-sex marriage. “The Manhattan Declaration” stresses the need to protect religious freedom in in the U.S. It’s signed by seminary leaders, pastors, professors and the heads of ministries. The Christian leaders have come together across denominational lines to call on believers everywhere to radically commit to fight for the sanctity of life, marriage and religious liberty. “And in all three of these areas we see threats in the culture and in our politics.” Robert George, one...

More than 150 leaders across a spectrum of conservative Christianity on Friday released a 4,700-word document vowing civil disobedience if they are forced to take part in "anti-life acts" or bless gay marriages. Called the "Manhattan Declaration," the six-page, single-spaced document was drafted by Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, an evangelical, and Princeton University professor Robert P. George, a Roman Catholic, and included a bevy of Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox bishops, archbishops and cardinals as signatories along with dozens of clergy and laity. Archbishop of Washington Donald W. Wuerl is one of the signatories. "Throughout the centuries, Christianity has taught...

We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image.... While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including...

November 19, 2009 Brown, Whitman tied in new Rasmussen poll With nearly a year until the general election, a new Rasmussen Reports poll puts GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and still-undeclared Democratic contender Jerry Brown locked in a tie with 41 percent support a piece. The results show Whitman gaining traction since a September Rasmussen survey, in which Brown outpolled Whitman 44 percent to 35 percent. Whitman's two rivals for the Republican nomination, former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner trailed Brown in the telephone survey of 500 likely voters. Brown came out nine-points ahead of Campbell...

Is Meg Whitman too green for the conservative core of the Republican Party? Wednesday the San Jose Mercury News released the news that eMeg has offered $200,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund from her charitable foundation, $100,000 more than what was first thought. Then there is Steve Poizner’s Charitable Foundation accounting numbers. While all of the attention is on Meg’s gifts to environmental causes, nobody has asked the obvious question: “Why does Steve Poizner’s charitable foundation only have $7,000 as its balance?” How can a millionaire have such a small amount of cash in his (and his wife’s) charitable foundation?...

There is a charge that exaggeration and campaign hyperbole has caused California Republican Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner to lose the centerpiece of his stump speech. Has the commissioner magnified his involvement in cost savings inside of the DOI by amplifying his numbers? A consumer watch group says the answer requires a clear perspective on who was initially responsible for lowering rates and reducing the commissioner’s office expenses. If it is decided that Steve Poizner has exaggerated his numbers and reduction measures, where does he run to next for a firm foundation to prove his tax-cutting, conservative ideals? This much is...

Is there a revolution inside of the California Republican Party? For a third time inside of the current election cycle a statewide Republican candidate has emerged with an embarrassing voting record. The GOP’s 2010 roster of statewide elephants now feature three voting violators: former HP CEO Carly Fiorina for US Senate, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman for Governor and newcomer Damon Dunn for Secretary of State. Each of these GOP candidates are holding serve inside of their respective campaigns, yet they display a great weakness with one of the most vital qualifications for voters to determine where they stand on...

During that radio visit in May, Meg stated that she was inviting Insurance Commissioner Poizner and Tom Campbell, for that matter, to participate in three fall debates. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner’s guber-campaign was clear in stating that they never received an invitation from Whitman. As fall wore on the Poizner Camp began to air audio from Whitman’s comments stating that Meg had never inquired of the commissioner’s availability for fall debates. And that it was actually Meg Whitman who was performing as the “debate dodger” in this case. During Tuesday’s interview, I played the audio from that May 18th appearance...

Republican gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman are looking forward to a better week, the previous seven-day period featured a bothersome news-cycle highlighting a few fiscal conflicts. For Poizner it was his use of CHP for security detail while on the campaign trail, and the fact that he WILL receive a paycheck as governor. For Meg it was a $45 million Charity Foundation's gift to environmentalists, and her $3 million hedge fund in the cayman Islands. You can read more at Hogue News today.

Billionaire gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman gave away just $125,000 of her charitable foundation's $46 million in assets in its first year of operation — and tax records show the bulk of the money went to a surprising place. The Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C. Whitman Charitable Foundation in 2007 contributed $100,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which is now at odds with Whitman over water policy. The foundation also invested $3 million in hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands — a Caribbean tax haven that's been the subject of political controversy. ... But it's the $100,000 to...

Former eBay executive Meg Whitman has opened up a wide lead in the Republican race for governor, according to the latest Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research poll. About a third of Republicans and decline-to-state voters who said they intend to vote Republican said they favor Whitman, who has a 3-to-1 edge over rival contender Tom Campbell, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner remains stuck in a distant third, with 5.5 percent of Republican support. The numbers show a significant increase in recent weeks for Whitman that reflects her prodigious spending. Already, seven months before the primary and full year before the general election, Whitman...

Former Los Angeles Mayor and state Education Secretary Richard Riordan has endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, adding to her collection of high-profile endorsements such as from former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. In the Whitman news release sent out this morning, Riordan says, "Meg believes the future of our state and the strength of our nation depend on Californians rededicating ourselves to education. Her commitment to returning control of our schools back to parents and teachers and demanding accountability makes Meg the best candidate." Whitman repeated the education theme in her quotes in...

A few weeks ago Jon Fleischman of FlashReport.org was fortunate enough to snag an interview with gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. But the results of one segment of the meeting left him admittedly non-plussed, or as he termed it "unnerved." Fleischman was aghast to learn of just how extreme Meg Whitman's views on abortion really are. And after reading Fleischman's interview myself, I have to wonder if her views makes her completely unelectable amongst California's pro-lifers? In the interview, Whitman was completely upfront about the fact that she stands solidly behind public funding of abortion. She was unequivocal about it, really....

Van Jones is President Barack Obama's newly appointed "Green Jobs Czar" Jones' official title is Special Advisor on Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The 41-year-old Yale Law School graduate and civil rights lawyer is also the founder of California's Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, "a non-profit agency for justice, opportunities and peace." Sounds idyllic, but Jones' past isn't so pastoral. The Ella Baker Center was connected to STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), a "multi-racial activist collective with Marxist influences" with which Jones was involved. In 1992, Van Jones...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Former New York City mayor and one-time GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is endorsing Meg Whitman's bid for the gubernatorial nomination in California. In a statement released Wednesday by Whitman's campaign, Giuliani says he believes the former eBay chief executive could help re-energize the Republican party's grassroots.

Meg Whitman, the 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate already on the defensive for her embarrassingly poor voting record, once endorsed and actively supported Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, one of the most proudly liberal politicians in California. Whitman not only endorsed Boxer and donated the maximum $4,000 to the junior California senator's 2004 re-election campaign, but the former eBay CEO also served on an exclusive committee of Technology Leaders for Boxer in her re-election battle against Republican California Secretary of State Bill Jones, according to election records obtained by The Chronicle. Whitman, in a 2003 Boxer campaign statement, spoke strongly on Boxer's...

Meg Whitman has had some bad days lately. After recently proclaiming herself a "darned good" conservative Republican, Senator Barbara Boxer's staff revealed that Whitman was a Boxer supporter in 2003. Dangerously for Whitman, Senator Boxer is one of the most liberal members of the Senate. According to Boxer aide Rose Kapolczynski, Whitman supported Boxer's "Technology Leaders for Boxer" effort in April of 2003. A letter from Boxer's office from 2003 features a quote from Whitman stating that she felt Boxer was a "courageous leader and friend of California's technology industry." (see image below) This is just one more troublesome issue...

Former eBay executive Meg Whitman, the 2010 gubernatorial candidate who has recently portrayed herself as a "darned good" conservative Republican, endorsed Democratic U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer in 2003, records show. "Whitman contributed $4,000 to Boxer in the 2004 reelection campaign -- and endorsed Boxer as a part of Technology Leaders for Boxer,'' confirmed Boxer aide Rose Kapolczynski today. And, she signed an "open letter" appealing for support from the California technology executives, touting Boxer as a "dynamic and courageous leader" on the tech front. Whitman's name was included in a "Friends of Boxer" release when the committee of a dozen...

GOP governor's candidate Meg Whitman: I focused on family instead of voting DAVIS — Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman said Tuesday that it wasn't until she was a chief executive in Silicon Valley that she realized why she should vote after sitting out elections for decades. She says the problems with government she confronted there inspired her to get involved in politics. Whitman sought to explain her spotty voting record for the first time after delivering a speech to a Yolo County Republican women's group. "I was focused on raising a family, on my husband's career, and we moved many,...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman said she wants to cut state spending by another $15 billion and reduce California's existing state work force by 17 percent, even as the state has wrestled with budget shortfalls in recent years that have led to deep cuts in education and other core programs. Whitman will outline some of her campaign themes in a speech Tuesday during which she will formally announce her bid for the Republican nomination. The campaign rollout will be accompanied by a statewide radio ad promoting her business experience, most recently as the chief executive of eBay, the online auction...

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is message-testing with a web ad going after former Hewlett Packard boss Carla Fiorina -- highlighting her huge severance package and the 18,000 staff reductions she instituted to bolster profits and HP's stock price. Fiorina has filed papers with the California elections board and is expected to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) next fall. Her cash, name recognition and ease on TV have gotten Democrats good and worried. A July Rasmussen Survey [take it with a grain] shows Boxer leading Fiorina by a 45-to-41 percent. The first quote is from Fiorina herself from a recent...

Here's the first post-Labor Day chance for you to hear what the Republican candidates for Guv sound like live, unscripted and grilled by someone who knows how to ask questions: A "moderated conversation" at 9 a.m. Thursday on the highly-rated "Ronn Owens Program" on KGO (810 AM). And they'll be welcoming calls, too, so start dialing. Well, most of the Republican candidates will be there. Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell and Insurance Commish Steve Poizner will show. Ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman won't. Here's a reminder about about all the backstage drama behind this. Whitman's reason for blowing off one of the nation's...

A May 2009 video of California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman praising Van Jones, which was posted by TWI yesterday, has inspired a parody video from the campaign of California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. It touches all the bases, portraying Whitman as an out-of-touch elitist who hobnobs not just with a man who called Republicans “assholes,” but with Jimmy Carter. Michael Goldfarb has Whitman responding by saying she “did not do a background check of his past over dinner” and “it’s clear that he holds views that I entirely reject.” But that doesn’t even cover her comments in the original video....