Order up! Official Crap Sandwich request has been delivered
Hill sources report that the Senate Clerk has now received the Bush administration’s official request for the second half of the TARP Crap Sandwich.
Meanwhile, Fox News is still fighting the government to release details of the bailout spending. I noted last month that Fox Business Network had filed a FOIA lawsuit against Naked Emperor Paulson over his TARP secrecy. Now, FBN has filed suit against the Federal Reserve.
Go get ‘em!
FOX Business Network (FBN) filed a lawsuit against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Fed”) over its failure to release information requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), announced Kevin Magee, Executive Vice President, FOX News.
The initial request to the Fed, filed on November 10, 2008, sought the identification of the financial institutions receiving funds and an accounting of the collateral provided by these financial institutions between August 2007 and November 2008. In a second FOIA request, filed on November 18, 2008, FBN sought expedited processing and requested a list of financial institutions that have received lending from the Fed’s programs, the amounts borrowed and collateral pledged by each institution for the months of September and October of 2008, as well as the amount of collateral held by the Fed by close of business on November 14, 2008.
In making the announcement Magee said, “As a news organization, we believe in the public’s right to know and will continue in our quest to hold the government accountable for their actions on the allocation of the bailout funds.”
Steven Mintz, Esq., of Mintz & Gold LLP, and legal counsel for the network added, “The government has power over possibly trillions of the taxpayer’s money and the fact that they are denying requests for enhanced transparency on the distribution of those funds is appalling. Therefore, we have filed a complaint in federal court in New York and ask the Court to make the Fed provide the information sought by the journalists at FBN.”
The FOIA complaint was filed by FOX News Network, LLC, as owner of FBN. FBN filed a similar lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department on December 18, 2008 for failure to respond to repeated requests made under FOIA for data on bailout fund allocation.
FOX Business Network (FBN) is a financial news channel delivering real-time information across all platforms that impact both Main Street and Wall Street. Headquartered in New York—the business capital of the world—FBN launched in October 2007 and is available in 45 million homes in major markets across the United States. Owned by News Corp, the network has bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Washington, DC and London.
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My my, what a surprise!
/sarc
I want to know exactly where that money went and how it’s being used. For the gubmint to stick the taxpayer for these funds then refuse to give an accounting is criminal. As for Paulson, the man is braindead and answers to too many masters.
The information would be of no use to terrorists. Therefore media access to it is denied.
It’s working, I swear it is, we just need more money.
If a friend “borrowed” money and gave me these nebulous “repayment” terms, I sure wouldn’t lend them any more.
Unlike the scenario described above, however, I am not a willing participant…I have no say in how *my* money is being used (wasted).
In this case, it is larceny, rather than simple theft. I just can’t report it to the police.
All anybody had to do was read the legislation when it was only 115 pages to clearly see that there was no oversight except that Paulson was to make a report to the Senate, basically, when he got around to it.
The legislation gave Paulson the power to do what he wanted, with whoever, and even clearly stated that the money didn’t have to be used to bailout mortgages–the whole reason they “had” to have the money in the first place.
The best part was that nobody, not the Feds, the Senate, the States, any branch of government could come back on Paulson later–he has total immunity. So sure lets give him another $350 bill to give to his friends and family. The first $350 didn’t do a thing so lets do it again—bureaucratic logic 101
With the history we have with liberal legislators, it should be no surprise to anyone that this has happened. It is also no surprise to me that everyone that thinks they can get some, wants bailout money.
This so similar to the way taxation works. Government assesses a tax, people complain, but pay it none-the-less. The liberal governing mentality thinks, “Well, if they can afford to pay this, then they can afford to pay even more!” And so it goes.
Our legislators have never had to account for any of their spending, and as long as that dependent part of our society gets their cut, they will continue to vote these thieves into office to continue the rip off. The socially liberal public that contribute so little to the income tax funds don’t care either! It’s not their money that the legislators are throwing away.
What ever happened to “just say no?” Enough is enough.
“Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.”
Bill Moyers
“Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction.”
Edward Teller
“The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness”
Niels Bohr
“The very word ’secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
LAst week we had Blarney Frank talking up how he is gonna crack down with new requirements for that TARP giveaway. Will he will make noise about it now?
Where’s my bailout? I think they should just give the rest of the Crap Sandwich to the tax payers and not to anyone else.
“Crap Sandwich”… ladylike.
I just spent my day at work preparing a submission for a short notice tasker to the Air Combat Command (ACC) Communications Directorate to help them defend the meager annual budget we use for must pay service contracts used to provide communications capability to our Wing. All submissions from the our flying Wing’s to ACC will be combined sent to Air Staff so some poor Senior Officer can sweat in front of a Senate or Congressional Sub-committee trying to defend funds required to pay A-76 study awarded service contracts (allegedly saving millions in Military personnel costs) forced down our throats by these utterly clueless self important bloated lying crapweasels. Where the hell is the same type of oversight and accountability for the Department of the Treasury and the paper printing fiends at the Federal Reserve Bank?
To hell with torches and pitchforks it is just about time to decorate the trees on the Capital Mall with these traitors and the chicken little lying crapweasels of Congress that have mortgaged our children’s and grandchildren’s future. After all wouldn’t it be festive for the coronation of the Marxist in Chief next week?
Yep! Not a happy camper in the middle of nowhere Idaho right now!
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE (mo-lone lah-veh) Translation: Come and take them!
Why hide, unless the money isn’t being used to better the lives of Americans.
Pelosi and Frank are snarking about how much more trust they have in the Obama administration spending the money the right way, than how the Bush administration did.
[Scratch head here] Remind me who the geniuses were in September and October who said that under the threat of Zeus himself that the TARP bill had to be passed and now. I recalled that the Republicans were deliberately disenfranchised from participating in crafting (I’m using the word loosely) the legislation. The Dems took the 1 page memo from Paulson and turned it into a 700+ page document with billions of pork earmarks in it and no accountability checks.
Now the Dems are complaining that the bill didn’t limit Paulson enough in how he spent the dough?!
Sometimes I think I’m living in upside down world…
My cardiologist told me in no uncertain terms, that I must cut out eating crap in my diet. I’ll have to have him send a note to D.C.
“For the first time in my life, I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet’s censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy…censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to it’s subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked, contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
- Heinlein
Freedom loving people will not surrender to this c—.
Hank, You have only seven days left in office and $350 billion dollars to spend. Let me know where to bring my wheel barrow, I’ll be glad to help.
In the mid sixties I worked for the passage of the Freedom of Information Act. At that time I was lambasted by conservatives for working for such a cause. Forty years later, I now feel validated for my efforts.
GO GET EM FOX NEWS
Yep, PEBHO spoke and Bush jumped.
WTH ? ? ?
So, all of the TARP/CRAP money will be requested/disbursed on W’s watch instead of BO’s watch. That way, if anything goes wrong it will be W’s fault forever.
The Dems are experts at calculating political movement. This is no accident or happenstance of timing.
When will the GOP learn … rules are for losers.
Why aren’t CBS, NBC, MSNBC and others filing FOA papers to obtain this info.. Is Fox the only one?
What? I guess GWB thinks that the GOP is still breathing – the body isn’t quite cold – so why not drive another stake into it while he can?
Bush. Carter. FDR. Which of these three left behind the biggest mess ever?
The heck with the auto industry; bail out the lobstermen!
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2009-01-12-lobsters_N.htm?csp=15
I will have 500,000 dollars, fires and a milk shake please, oh and can I get that to go?
Thanks.
fires = fries. ugh.
I liked fires better…:)