Greg Palast: Billionaire Bankster Penny Pritzker Breaks into Obama's Cabinet

[antigop]

http://www.gregpalast.com/billionaire-bankster-breaks-into-obamas-cabinet/

The following is taken from the Chapter, "Penny's from Heaven?" you'll find in my bestseller, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits. [Get a copy, I'll sign it, and you send it to the President.]

We never heard of this guy Barack Obama until 2004. Less than three years before taking the presidency, he was in the Illinois state senate, a swamp of scammers, backhanders, and party machine tools - not a stellar launch pad for the White House. And then, one day, state Sen. Barack Obama was visited by his fairy godmother. Her name is Penny Pritzker.

Pritzker's net worth is listed in Forbes as $1.8 billion, which is one hell of a heavy magic wand in the world of politics. Her wand would have been heavier, and her net worth higher, except that in 2001, the federal government fined her and her family $460 million for the predatory, deceitful, racist tactics and practices of Superior, the bank-and-loan-shark operation she ran on the South Side of Chicago.

Superior was the first of the deregulated go-go banks to go bust - at the time, the costliest failure ever. US taxpayers lost nearly half a billion dollars. Superior's depositors lost millions and poor folk in Sen. Obama's South Side district lost their homes.

Penny did not like paying $460 million. No, not one bit. What she needed was someone to give her Hope and Change. She hoped someone would change the banking regulators and the Commerce Department so she could get away with this crap.

[MotherPetrie]

1. Another day, another shitty Obama nominee

[Downwinder]

2. Lester Crown must have been too busy to be Sec. of Defense.

[haikugal]

3. It's all so damned obvious...

I'm getting to the point that I can't watch him on tv anymore...I mute him or change the channel. I'm sure there's some mystical, clever reason for him to do these things....3...2...1.

[FiveGoodMen]

12. "can't watch him on tv anymore"

Same way it was with Bush.

[haikugal]

13. No difference....

[alittlelark]

4. ..........

[colsohlibgal]

5. Obama Is Banking On People Not Paying Attention

Sadly, enough don't. And of those that do, too many are complete Obama apologists.

[MindPilot]

8. I think you could have stopped at "banking".

Even the most diehard Obama can do no wrong supporter must be starting to realize that they have been taken for a ride.

[rhett o rick]

6. Did we think that Pres Obama would side with the 99%? Not a chance. nm

[Addison]

7. Starting a petition to rename Pennsylvania Avenue

to "Wall Street"

[fasttense]

9. Obama has turned the Democratic party into the banksters party.

"But today, with the unions' money and votes already pocketed and counted, Obama can give working folks The Finger and give Penny her pound of flesh: the Commerce post."

He gave us change alright. He changed the Democratic Party into the mildly moderate RepubliCON party.

[antigop]

10. And what about Bill Clinton who sold out the American worker?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017111501

[marmar]

11. Actually, that's been well under way since the arrival of Bill Clinton.

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/14/clintons_no_liberal_hero/


The story is more comprehensive than just a one-off financial relationship; Clinton has in fact done phenomenally well from the financial services industry in his post-presidential career. He received $125,000 in cash apiece from Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse just two months after signing the bill deregulating derivatives. His speaking arrangements, a well-known conduit to funnel cash to retired politicians, has garnered him over $80 million since 2001, a substantial amount of which has come from the financial services industry he helped. And his pay, unlike most Americans’, has gone up – in 2001, he was making roughly $125,000 a speech. By 2011, he was making $175,000 a speech, with some speeches topping out at $750,000. Not bad for an hour’s work.

There’s more. In 2010, Clinton received a six-figure cash payment from the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo, one of many payments he received from groups with significant policy interests before the State Department run by his spouse. He garnered cash before energy groups, health insurers and the pharmaceutical industry, and offered political advice about healthcare and the Keystone pipeline. He has strange investments in a Dubai-based fund. Last year alone, which is the latest year for which we have disclosure information, Clinton received six-figure cash payments from Goldman Sachs ($200,000), HSBC Securities ($200,000), Fidelity Investments ($175,000), TD Bank ($260,000), Itau BBA USA Securities ($175,000), privatization specialist Highstar Capital ($175,000), Jefferies and Co. ($200,000), UBS Wealth Management ($165,000 and $150,000), American Express ($250,000), TD Ameritrade ($200,000), Highland Capital ($175,000), Wells Fargo ($200,000), the Association for Financial Professionals ($175,000) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch ($200,000).

[Cal33]

14. So, do we need another Clinton for president? Let's start early clamoring for someone with

integrity, idealism and love of the American people -- Elizabeth Warren, for instance.
If we start now, by 2016 she will be a well-known household name.

[Fire Walk With Me]

17. Warren/Sanders would ROCK...but the government is already rife with Korporate Korruption

so how to restore "one person, one vote"?

[grahamhgreen]

15. K&R!

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. STOP BASHING OBAMA!

We could Occupy this shit, but Obama signed HR347 making it a Federal crime with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for protesting where secret service are at work. Nice little force field against the people of this damn country. It's not democracy when they don't listen.

[Fire Walk With Me]

18. Kick

[Marta Steele]

19. Maybe

Obama can only nominate people the GOP will let through.
Think of all of those nominations in abeyance--at the judiciary level, for instance.
The Election Assistance Commission has lacked all four commissioners
since 2011 because the GOP is blocking O's nominations. This
from Wikipedia: "The Help America Vote Act specifies that four commissioners are nominated by the President on recommendations from the majority and minority leadership in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Once confirmed by the full Senate, commissioners may serve two consecutive terms and no more than two commissioners may belong to the same political party."