Bailouts = Payola

Goldman Employees Donated $1 MILLION to Obama Campaign

By John McCormick - Apr 20, 2010

U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias pushed his Republican opponent in Illinois to give back donations from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. without saying whether President Barack Obama should return almost $1 million that bank employees contributed to his White House bid.

Obama, a political mentor and basketball buddy to Giannoulias, received the money from employees and their family members, making Goldman Sachs second only to the University of California as his biggest single source for donors in 2007 and 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Mark Kirk, the congressman competing against Giannoulias for the seat once held by Obama, ranks sixth for donations from Goldman employees, the center’s data shows. The top five are Democratic Congressman Michael McMahon of New York, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, and three other New York Democrats: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Representative Scott Murphy and Senator Charles Schumer.[More]

Crooks all. Republicans and Democrats alike. Give back the money NOW and keep your grubby hands out of the financial market. Whatever legislation they pass will do absolutely NOTHING to keep them from getting their hands greased again and again.

Kiss of Death

Obama Plans Campaign Stop for Reid in Nevada

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

The White House is about to make another big gesture demonstrating its support for Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader under fire for remarks he made about President Obama’s race.

In February, Mr. Obama will head to Nevada to appear with Mr. Reid, who is facing a tough reelection battle there, aides said today.

The decision by the president to fly to Nevada for the majority leader comes as the Reid operation has made an all-out effort to rally Democrats and African-Americans around Mr. Reid, and to head off a crisis that
has grown amid crucial health care negotiations and his own campaign. Several Republican officials – including the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele – called on Mr. Reid to resign.

Mr. Reid made clear he would not.

In an interview for a new book, Mr. Reid said that Mr. Obama would be able to become the first African-American president, because he was “light-skinned” and because he did not speak with a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Mr. Reid’s aides said he thought he was in a private conversation when he made the remarks to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, for their book, “Game Change.”

Obama is such a great campaigner. I'm sure his appearance on Reid's behalf in Nevada will put the Senate Majority Leader over the top. Just ask Martha Coakley.

Enough Said

Obama, Venezuela's Chavez shake hands at summit

PORT OF SPAIN, April 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday greeted and shook hands with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez during an impromptu meeting with the anti-U.S. leader at the Summit of the Americas.

Photographs released by the Venezuelan government showed Chavez, a fierce foe of former President George W. Bush, smiling and clasping hands with Obama at the start of the summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Trinidad.

It's like watching a suicide.

Openness and Transparency from the Office of the President-Elect: "Let Me Cut You Off" and "Don't Waste Your Question"

John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune gets schooled on what happens when a reporter veers off script and actually asks the Obamabuddha tough questions. The president-elect is obviously testy and irritated with the question and he was not about to let McCormick finish asking it, much less answer it truthfully. Predictable.

Blagojevichgate, the Obamathug's pre-inauguration scandal, will not rest.