As you may have notice, for most of the day yesterday AmpedStatus.com was down. Shortly after posting our new report we were hit with a heavy barrage of DoS attacks. Not only did they take out our website, they took out our ISP network, which affected many other sites as well. We will release information on where the attacks were coming from once the ISP network gives us the go-ahead.
We're assuming that the attacks were designed to keep us out of the peak news cycle for the report below. We timed the release to correspond with Obama's press conference announcing his new economic team. Unfortunately, it appears as if they succeeded, as many of the websites that were linking or would have linked to it while peak traffic attention was focused on this news peg has faded.
It's one thing to be threatened with baseless defamation lawsuits, as we have in the past, that are clearly designed to intimidate. It's quite another to get knocked off the net for exercising our First Amendment rights. The limited knowledge I have of these attacks leads me to believe that we may never know the true source of them, as it is easy to set up servers in foreign locations to launch attacks from, but given the information contained in the following article, we can only speculate as to who is behind this.
Obama Renews Commitment to Complete Destruction of the Middle Class - Meet the New Economic Death Squad
Obama has just doubled down on the side of the financial terrorists. Meet Bill Daley and Gene Sperling - another JP Morgan-Goldman Sachs attack. Let's dig deep into their past and reveal everything that you need to know.
Obama Renews Commitment to Complete Destruction of the Middle Class - Meet the New Economic Death SquadBy David DeGraw, AmpedStatus
Sticking with my New Year's resolution to not participate in journalism of appeasement, this article and headline will definitely not be picked up by the appeasers. The unfortunate truth that they don't want to acknowledge is that Barack "Banana Republic Bankster Puppet" Obama has bowed to his masters yet again.
For the people still delusional enough to believe anything that the psychological operation known as Barack Obama says, this will just be more facts for you to ignore. So turn away now and go watch some "reality" TV - the economy is recovering, tax cuts for multi-millionaires will help everyone, exporting jobs to South Korea will be great for the middle class, the oil in the Gulf of Mexico is 75% cleaned up, seafood from there is perfectly healthy, health insurance rates are declining, the "situation" in Afghanistan is improving, non-combat troops are leaving Iraq, your civil liberties are just fine and a unicorn will soon give you a magical ride over the rainbow. Just click your heels together and the American dream will continue, after this message from our sponsors:
If, on the other hand, you live in the real world, Obama's latest cabinet appointments are yet another blatant sign that he is absolutely committed to destroying what is left of the middle class. Obama is doubling down on the side of the financial terrorists. Enter Bill Daley and Gene Sperling - a JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs one-two punch to send battered and bruised Americans to the canvas for a final ten-count.
The announcement of Bill Daley, JP Morgan Chase's czar of "government affairs" (lobbying), as Obama's new Chief of Staff may sound bad on the surface, but if you dig into Daley's background, it gets, as George W would say, "downright evil." Other than spending the past seven years serving Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan, Bill Daley was also a Chamber of Commerce chair. While at the Chamber, Daley "played a major role in opposing the regulation of derivatives" and signed the now infamous Chamber of Commerce manifesto to destroy middle class America.
And we're just getting warmed up... Daley was Clinton's NAFTA czar (job exporting specialist) and he even has deep ties to the organization responsible for creating the explosion in CEO pay, all-time record-breaking inequality of wealth and shipping millions more jobs overseas, The Business Roundtable. They just released the following statement:
"Business Roundtable has a strong relationship with Mr. Daley and has worked with him in the past on many issues important to both business and the broader economy, such as the successful ratification of NAFTA. Mr. Daley can continue to be an important partner in our fight.... We look forward to continuing our work with Mr. Daley in his new position."
Let's also mention that he played a pivotal role in creating the housing crisis, was on the board of Fannie Mae, opposed financial reform, supported health insurance companies, fought for Pharma interests, lobbied for telecommunications companies and adamantly opposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He even railed against post-Enron accounting and auditing laws... P.O.P... that was the sound of the vein in my head bursting.
But wait... it gets even better! As a board member of the think tank "Third Way," Daley took a strong interest in cutting "entitlements" like Social Security and Medicare. He is a proud member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Boards of Directors of Merck & Co., one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, and he is on the board of . . . wait for it . . . Boeing. Yes, the Pentagon-Wall Street-Pharma nexus is complete. You may now run the White House.
Boeing certainly does love Wall Street. For those of you out of the loop, you may not recall that the most powerful and destructive WMD that Boeing executives ever helped develop was the CDO, that's a Collateralized Debt (Damage) Obligation. Do you remember that guy Edward Liddy? Liddy and Bill Daley were both Boeing board members, before Liddy temporarily moved to Goldman Sachs where he oversaw their Audit Committee. Liddy was the person who had the most knowledge of Goldman's CDO exposure insured through, what was that company's name?... Oh, AIG. Yeah, that was it. Then, Hank "Pentagon-Watergate-Goldman" Paulson unilaterally made Liddy the CEO of AIG, before teaming up with Tim "Kissinger-Rubin-Summers-IMF" Geithner to flush $183 billion tax dollars down the "too big to fail" drain. And then... after the government was finished pumping our tax dollars to financial terrorists through the AIG SPV, Liddy scurried back to the board of Boeing where he could have cocktails with his ole pal Billy-Boy Daley. Yep, Goldman, JP Morgan, Boeing and the destruction of the US economy, birds of a feather...
But I digress, this all happened so long ago, who even remembers this stuff? It all sounds too conspiracy theory for me anyway.
Seriously though, this appointment shows you how arrogant this criminal racket is in their power. Through Daley, JP Morgan and friends will now control Obama's information flow and schedule. But don't take my word for it, as you might have noticed, I'm completely biased against the people who are raping this country. When it comes to financial terrorists, my commitment to being fair and balanced goes right out the window. So let's see what others are reporting...
To throw a little light on this deal with the dark side, Paul Blumenthal from the Sunlight Foundation focuses on the ever-spinning revolving door between Washington and Wall Street:
The revolving door shouldn't spin again for William Daley
"A Daley selection, which has been hailed by banks, would plant an official emissary from Wall Street into one of the most important jobs in Washington.
The President once told a meeting of bankers that he was 'the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks.' That apparently wasn't good enough. Picking Daley would send the message that the pitchforks-normal people-matter less than the continued flow of campaign donations from the uber-wealthy. Barack Obama raised $39 million from the finance, insurance and real estate sector in his 2008 bid for President, the most raised from this sector by anyone in one cycle seeking political office in the United States ever.
Even more problematic than the need to corral donors for 2012 is that Daley's presence would allow him to control the time of the President. Daley could choose who the President sees and what information gets to the President. Based on the praise the financial sector has for the Daley selection, it is clear who those people are and what that information would be." [read more]
That old-fashioned investigative reporting outlet ProPublica focuses on Daley's Chamber days:
Obama's New Chief of Staff a Top Banker With Strong Chamber Ties
Obama has named Bill Daley his new chief of staff... a current JPMorgan Chase executive.... Daley has strong ties to the Chamber of Commerce, which opposed the financial reform bill that was a cornerstone of the administration's agenda last year. From Kevin Connor, co-director the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit research organization:
'From 2005 to 2007, he co-chaired a Chamber of Commerce committee on financial (de)regulation. The 'Commission on the Regulation of Capital Markets in the 21st Century' eventually became the Chamber's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, which played a prominent role in attacking derivatives regulation and consumer protections last year. The Hill called the group one of the 'loudest voices on financial legislation' -and they weren't exactly singing the praises of reform efforts.
Daley also signed on to a March 2009 Chamber manifesto on 'Restoring Confidence in US Capital Markets,' the Chamber's opening PR move in the financial reform debate.'
The new chief of staff has publicly opposed the concept of an independent consumer financial protection agency...." [read more]
Those are some of the many financial ties, but let's not forget the Boeing connection.
This just in:
Pentagon delays F-35, buys more Boeing fighters
"The Pentagon overhauled the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program for the second time in a year and said it would buy 41 Boeing Co F/A-18 warplanes over the next three years...." [read more]
Wow, that paid off real quick! Probably just a coincidence though. No conflicts of interest to see here, or anywhere else for that matter. Move along...
Now, for the icing on the cake, Obama's pick to replace Larry Summers as his top economic advisor is Tim Geithner's right-hand confidant, former Goldman executive and Rubin disciple Gene Sperling. Speriling was also a Clinton-Rubin-Summers compadre who held this same position under Clinton, playing a direct role in implementing the very policies that fueled our current crisis.
As Wikipedia succinctly states:
"As director of the NEC. Sperling was a principal negotiator with then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers of the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Gramm-Leach-Bliley repealed large portions of the depression-era Glass-Stegall Act allowing banks, securities firms and insurance companies to merge." [ read more]
Speriling is another Council on Foreign Relations member and has worked for the Brookings Institution. He even made some dough off of CIA Ponzi scheme mastermind Allen Stanford. I won't even go down that rabbit hole, here's William Alden's recent take on him:
Gene Sperling Made Millions On Wall Street As Economy Tanked
"Gene Sperling, a leading contender for a top economic post in the White House, made millions on Wall Street even as the economy faltered. The adviser to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is near the top of President Barack Obama's list of candidates to replace Larry Summers as director of the National Economic Council... By appointing Sperling, the president would fuel perceptions that his administration is overly close to Wall Street, installing a policymaker who has not only overseen monumental deregulation of the financial sector, but has also Sperling worked under Rubin in the early Clinton years, when Rubin was NEC director. In Clinton's second term, during Sperling's own tenure as NEC director, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, prompting a rule-easing that allowed Citigroup to become the world's largest financial services company.
Citigroup later required a $45 billion taxpayer bailout.
'He saw nothing at all wrong with the pattern of growth we had in place in the '90s,' Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, said of Sperling. 'He was not thinking at all critically, seeing that there were even any issues here.'" [read more]
As for Sterling's most recent achievement, he played a lead role in extending tax cuts to the richest 1%.
What a resume! Let's put this guy in charge. You can't even make this shit up. Could Obama have found any more corrupt and incompetent Wall Street thugs than this?
To end on a more positive note, albeit another sad development, at least these appointments have further exposed who the Democratic party partisan hacks are. Howard Dean, the man who is supposed to be the "Progressive left" challenger to Obama in 2012, adamantly supports Bill Daley as Chief of Staff, calling his appointment a "huge plus." Ouch, that's a bitter pill for Progressives to swallow. And Mother Jones' David Corn has come out in support of Gene Sperling.
Dear Progressives, put the Kool-Aid down and step away from the two-party oligarchy.
It's just another sad, sad day on the way down, as America burns.
Maybe I'll go lay down and watch the Daily Show...
WTF?... Obama is Luke Skywalker?!? Oh Jonny, not you too?
Say it ain't so! Perhaps I should have just taken the blue pill...
- David DeGraw is the founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com. He is the author of The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States. His new book is The Road Through 2012.
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