Free Republic

Obama needs to support freedom in Iran by Michael Rubin June 23, 2009 Over the weekend, both conservative columnist George Will and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan argued that conservative criticism of President Obama's rhetorical restraint amidst the Iranian protests was unwarranted. "The president is being roundly criticized for insufficient rhetorical support for what's going on over there. It seems foolish criticism," Will said. "To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous," Noonan wrote. "The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as...

by Michael Rubin Street protests in Iran are important but are themselves not enough to force change. The supreme leader will not be swayed because he considers himself accountable to God, not to the people. Indeed, even the Islamic Republic's clerical establishment is irrelevant in this calculus. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's invocation of folk religion -- his appeals to the messianic Hidden Imam, for example -- is a way to bypass senior religious figures who, according to Shiite theology, will be among the greatest obstacles to the Hidden Imam's return. Nor does the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pay too much...

Iran's election result proves the US formula in the Middle East is not working June 14, 2009 On June 4, President Barack Obama declared, "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world." Awed by Obama's rhetoric, many commentators -- blogger Juan Cole and MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, for example -- suggested that an "Obama Effect" could usher in a new era of hope and change in the Middle East, and a pro-American outcome in Lebanese elections earlier this month seemed to cooperate with the theory. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection...

Wow, that has to be a record for shortest tenure ever at the NY Fed. His resignation letter (below), is as Dealbook notes, rather disingenuous: Mr. Friedman was chairman of the New York Fed at the same time he was a member of Goldman’s board. He also had a substantial stake in the firm as the Fed was crafting a solution to keep Wall Street banks afloat. Denis M. Hughes, deputy chair of the board, will take over as the interim chairman, the New York Fed said in a statement. (Read Mr. Friedman’s letter after the jump.) Because the New...

President Barack Obama has made outreach to the Islamic Republic of Iran a foreign policy centerpiece of his administration. At his inauguration, he promised that if US adversaries would unclench their fists the United States would extend a hand. Then, in his first major television interview, he told al-Arabiya satellite TV, "It is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but [also] where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach." He has. US diplomats...

Iran’s arrest of journalist Roxana Saberi recalls Iraq’s treatment of Farzad Bazoft. Michael Rubin On April 13, Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old Iranian-American journalist, appeared before a closed hearing of a revolutionary court to answer charges of spying for the United States — potentially capital charges. Iranian officials brushed off Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s request for Saberi to be released. Iranian justice was quick. On April 18, the court found Saberi guilty and sentenced her to eight years. Her case calls to mind that of Farzad Bazoft, a Western journalist executed by Saddam Hussein in 1990. It is worthwhile to...

Don’t blame GOP for this messWednesday, April 8, 2009 Hoover most certainly did not ignore the problems. Hoover (contrary to his fundamental beliefs) took action. Unfortunately, as explained in Amity Schlae’s “The Forgotten Man,” Hoover “by intervening in business, signing into law a destructive tariff, and by assailing the stockmarket” did damage on all three fronts. You also are apparently unaware of the massive public projects at federal and state level that Hoover pushed for as part of his program to retain employment and high wages. The Republicans did not have a program of “doing nothing” as you stated. The...

There is a whiff of Fascism emanating from the Obama White House. Reports say that the head of GM is quitting under duress from the Obama administration:

Mr. Greenspan’s legacy may ultimately rest on a more deeply embedded and much less scrutinized phenomenon: the spectacular boom and calamitous bust in derivatives trading.[snip] “Proposals to bring even minimalist regulation were basically rebuffed by Greenspan and various people in the Treasury,” recalled Alan S. Blinder, a former Federal Reserve board member and an economist at Princeton University. “I think of him as consistently cheerleading on derivatives.”[snip] Robert E. Rubin, the Treasury secretary then. Treasury lawyers concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market [snip] In early 1998, Mr. Rubin’s deputy, Lawrence H. Summers, called Ms. Born* and...

Over the past ten days, as the furor over AIG retention plan bonuses has focused on Sen. Chris Dodd and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, the White House has undertaken a PR offensive to protect the highest ranking Obama Administration official who was involved in the House and Senate negotiations over the stimulus bill, in which the AIG waiver language was inserted. "Right now, you get the feeling this is all about protecting [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel,” says a former Treasury Department lawyer, who worked in that department's counsel's office on the Troubled Asset Relief Program...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will on Monday provide details about the government's latest plan to help rid banks of toxic assets clogging the financial system. The Treasury Department said in a press release that it will hold the briefing at 8:45 a.m. EDT on Monday. The Treasury Department's program involves setting up a new investment fund to buy mortgage-related securities and other assets weighing down bank balance sheets. The new Public Private Investment Program would combine taxpayer money with private funds, aiming to buy loans and free up banks to renew lending. The Wall Street Journal...

Excerpts from a 4 part New York Times article intended to lay the total blame for the financial collapse on Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm and deregulation, but what it really does is show that the government is filled with crooks and is totally incompetent regarding running the economy. The sooner control is wrested from government's corrupt hands the better. Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy Excerpt from part 3: In 1997, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading, began exploring derivatives regulation. The commission, then led by a lawyer named Brooksley...

Upon Rubin's retirement, Clinton called him the "greatest secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton." "During his tenure as Treasury Secretary," Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, "Bob was an ideal public servant who put policy before politics." [8][dead link] In 1997, together with then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives, when such regulation was proposed by then-head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Brooksley Born. Overexposure to credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities was a key reason for the failure of US financial institutions Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group, and Washington...

A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking. Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths. Investor-plaintiffs in the suit accuse Citi management of overseeing the repackaging of unmarketable collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that no one wanted - and then reselling them to Citi and...

January 23, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/fugitive012309.htm Possible Sighting of FBI Fugitive in British Columbia The FBI is working with Canadian authorities to confirm the possible sighting of one of its Domestic Terrorism fugitives. Last November, the Bureau announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of four eco-terrorists known as “The Family.” Rebecca Rubin, one of the four fugitives, was spotted by a tipster who may have seen her near her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. We received several tips about all of the fugitives as a result of the publicity. Some of...

Geithner's risky oversight of CitigroupBy JEFF GERTH - PROPUBLICA | 1/14/09 12:39 PM EST As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Timothy Geithner often preached that gargantuan financial firms like Citigroup should be held to the highest regulatory standards to make sure they couldn’t take on too much risk. But when it came to supervising Citigroup in recent years, the record shows that the New York Fed eased the reins as the company blew billions on subprime mortgages and other risky deals that ultimately forced the biggest bank rescue in U.S. history. **SNIP** Geithner’s tenure at the New...

Governor Bill Richardson says it's all a matter of timing -- that if only the feds had wrapped up a corruption investigation into his New Mexico Administration by now, he'd be cleared and would be winging his way to Washington confident of Senate confirmation as the next Commerce Secretary. Instead, he withdrew his nomination earlier this week. And maybe he's right about timing. But we'd dial the clock back not to August, as the national media have in clucking that Barack Obama has a sloppy vetting process. Rather, go back to December 7, 2006. That's the day the Bush Justice...

Two high-profile culprits in a pair of colossal economic scandals bit the dust yesterday.... * Robert Rubin, Clinton's onetime Treasury secretary, resigned as senior counselor at Citigroup. * Madoffian J. Ezra Merkin resigned as GMAC Financial Services Chairman, effective immediately. Rubin architected risky debt strategy that brought once-great Citi to its knees, costing it $20 billion in losses the past year alone. ....shares fell to 10% of as Rubin was collecting $115 million in salary - plus stock options. Now America's taxpayers are forced to bail out Citigroup to the tune of $45 billion in cash and $306 billion in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary, resigned from Citigroup Inc on Friday, following months of criticism of his performance at the giant U.S. bank. Rubin, 70, is stepping down immediately as senior counselor at New York-based Citigroup. He will remain a director until the bank's annual meeting later this year. Rubin joined Citigroup in 1999. In a letter to Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, Rubin praised management for making the "tough decisions" to restore Citigroup to health, following $20.3 billion of losses in the year ended Sept 30. But he admitted to not having foreseen the credit...

Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary who has been sharply criticized over his role in the financial turmoil at Citigroup Inc., plans to leave the bank and has submitted a letter of resignation, according to a person familiar with the situation.