Drudge: Wall Street Weighs Constitutional Challenge to Obama's Tax

Wow, maybe this $90 billion "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee" is getting under the skin of Wall Street's elite.

Are Wall Street's elite going to challenge the tax in court as unconstitutional? Drudge is reporting it is under consideration.

Are they about to teach Obama that the breaking of the Constitution is only allowed when money flows into the Wall Street, not out?

Is this just one step away from the Wall Street elite teaching Obama the ultimate lesson they taught Eliot Spitzer: Do Not EVER Fuck With Wall Street?

Have the Wall Street elite already put a call in to their special ops man, Roger Stone?

Ashley's Mom On the Latest Spitz Rumors

Yesterday, NyPo reported that Eliot Spitzer has been engaged in informal discussions with friends about the possibility of running for state comptroller, or for US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's seat.

Spitzer left his New York governor's position after being exposed (probably by Wall Street operatives who were being harassed by Spitzer) as a crazed hooker addict.

Now the mother of one the escorts speaks out after news has leaked that Spitzer is considering a run for office.

Below a photo of Ashley with her Mom, at the beach in July 2008.


NyPo reports:

The mother of the high-priced hooker who famously serviced Eliot Spitzer was stunned yesterday to learn the disgraced pol is mulling a run for office less than two years after the sordid sex scandal...

"Only in America," Ashley Dupre's mom, Carolyn Capalbo, told The Post.

While Spitzer is discussing the possibility of a run next year, Dupre -- who was 22 when the self-described "steamroller" of Albany paid to play with her -- is struggling to get back on her feet, said Capalbo...

Capalbo said her daughter had turned down lucrative offers to make a buck off of the scandal, including posing for nudie mags...

"The woman always ends up the filthy, marked whore and he ends up coming back the savior of politics," said a disgusted pal of Dupre. "I feel bad for her. She's the one who paid the price for it."...

A giddy-looking Spitzer, leaving his Fifth Avenue home yesterday morning, told a Post photographer, "The only thing I'm running for is my cab."

He denied to NY1 that he was running for office.

However, several sources said Spitzer has been having conversations with friends about running for office next year. Several sources said he'd love his old job back as state attorney general, but it's considered too tough a political lift.

"He's looked at everything," said one source.

Spitzer Spits Out an Endorsement of Ron Paul's Audit the Fed Bill

The below video is a hoot. Dale Ratigan tries to explain how the Fed ripped off taxpayers. He seems to think taxpayer money was used and doesn't realize the Fed can just print money.

Eliot Spitzer, at the core still a big government type, sees all kinds of roles for government in resolving the financial crisis.



Note that in this clip, Spitzer pretty much comes out and calls for the Fed audit that Ron Paul's bill would require, but Spitzer manages to avoid Paul's name as though it was the name of some $20 an hour hooker.

Spitzer, of course, would never get caught with such low scale action. No, he paid $5,000 for the services of Audrey "Kristen" Dupree.


Since he knows that it was Wall Street elements that busted his romps in the sack with Dupree, and her ilk, Spitzer will do anything he can to harass Wall Street. Because of his bust, he likely has plenty of time on his hands to do so, since he is not getting any more action from Dupree and it is unlikely he is getting any at home.

Eliot Spitzer Breaks Down the New York Fed

Spitzer out of power is much, much better than Spitzer in power. Never vote for this guy. Here he is,out of power,doing an awesome job breaking down the inner workings of the New York Fed:

Given the power of the N.Y. Fed, it is time to ask some very hard questions about its recent performance. The first question to ask is: Who is the New York Fed? Who exactly has been running the show? Yes, we all know that Tim Geithner was the president and CEO of the N.Y. Fed from 2003 until his ascension as treasury secretary. But who chose him for that position, and to whom did he report? The N.Y. Fed president reports to, and is chosen by, the Fed board of directors.

So who selected Geithner back in 2003? Well, the Fed board created a select committee to pick the CEO. This committee included none other than Hank Greenberg, then the chairman of AIG; John Whitehead, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs; Walter Shipley, a former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, now JPMorgan Chase; and Pete Peterson, a former chairman of Lehman Bros. It was not a group of typical depositors worried about the security of their savings accounts but rather one whose interest was in preserving a capital structure and way of doing business that cried out for—but did not receive—harsh examination from the N.Y. Fed.

The composition of the New York Fed's board, which supervises the organization and current Chairman Friedman, is equally troubling. The board consists of nine individuals, three chosen by the N.Y. Fed member banks as their own representatives, three chosen by the member banks to represent the public, and three chosen by the national Fed Board of Governors to represent the public. In theory this sounds great: Six board members are "public" representatives.

So whom have the banks chosen to be the public representatives on the board during the past decade, as the crisis developed and unfolded? Dick Fuld, the former chairman of Lehman; Jeff Immelt, the chairman of GE; Gene McGrath, the chairman of Con Edison; Ronay Menschel, the chairwoman of Phipps Houses and also, not insignificantly, the wife of Richard Menschel, a former senior partner at Goldman. Whom did the Board of Governors choose as its public representatives? Steve Friedman, the former chairman of Goldman; Pete Peterson; Jerry Speyer, CEO of real estate giant Tishman Speyer; and Jerry Levin, the former chairman of Time Warner. These were the people who were supposedly representing our interests!

I have wondered what the connection was between Geithner and JPMorganChase. The Geithner Goldman connection is obvious. Goldman just has tentacles everywhere. (In the above paragraphs, Spitzer mentions three Goldman connections.) But, I haven't been able to understand why JPMorganChase was given so much preferential treatment.

One clue may be in Spitzer's note that Walter Shipley former chairman of the soon to be JPMorganChase (then just Chase Manhattan Bank) was on the committee that selected Geithner to run the New York Fed. Shipley literally gave Geithner the New York Fed position as president.

There may be other connections. Probably some having to do with Paulson, but clearly Geithner can now be tied into the cabal not only from the Goldman side but also the JPMorganChase side.

Spitzer: AIG About Insiders Protecting Themselves

You gotta love the out of power, tell it like it is, patriots, they know where the bodies are buried.

Eliot Spitzer, who is quite out of power, rips the entire inside money crowd, in his new role as columnist (Of course, it was part of the Wall Street crowd that took Spitz down). Here's some of the juicy stuff:

Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?

For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman's collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG's inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG's trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.

It all appears, once again, to be the same insiders protecting themselves against sharing the pain and risk of their own bad adventure...

The appearance that this was all an inside job is overwhelming. AIG was nothing more than a conduit for huge capital flows to the same old suspects, with no reason or explanation.

So here are several questions that should be answered, in public, under oath, to clear the air:

What was the precise conversation among Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, and Blankfein that preceded the initial $80 billion grant?

Was it already known who the counterparties were and what the exposure was for each of the counterparties?

What did Goldman, and all the other counterparties, know about AIG's financial condition at the time they executed the swaps or other contracts? Had they done adequate due diligence to see whether they were buying real protection? And why shouldn't they bear a percentage of the risk of failure of their own counterparty?

What is the deeper relationship between Goldman and AIG? Didn't they almost merge a few years ago but did not because Goldman couldn't get its arms around the black box that is AIG? If that is true, why should Goldman get bailed out? After all, they should have known as well as anybody that a big part of AIG's business model was not to pay on insurance it had issued.

Why weren't the counterparties immediately and fully disclosed?

First Rush, now Spitz, on the trail of Goldman. You gotta love it.

The full Spitzer column is here.

The Geithner Attacks Continue

Now, it's NyPo taking a shot:

A government bailout is bad under any conditions, but Geithner
seems to let even obvious problems remain.

Eliot Spitzer warned us:

Tim is a good guy, but he’s not a thinker.

Fun with Eliot

A Manhattan judge ordered the government to unseal documents about wiretaps in the Eliot Spitzer case, reports CNBC's Bertha Coombs.

As New York governor and attorney general, Eliot Spitzer went after Wall Street. There is no question that the exposure of Spitzer as a hooker crazed junkie was Wall Street payback.

Was Eliot Spitzer Warning Us....

...that Treasury Secretary Geithner is not the sharpest tack in the room?--- when he said:

Tim is a good guy, but he’s not a thinker. He’s the status quo.

After Geithner's abysmal performance outlining his bailout "plan", we all know this today. But Spitzer commented about Geithner in December.

Nice call, Spitz.

Eliot Spitzer Nails It...

...and I am not talking about his hooker, Ashley Dupree. Spitzer writes:

Although everybody claims to love the market, nobody really likes the rough-and-tumble of competition that produces the essential "creative destruction" of capitalism. At bottom, this abhorrence of competition and change are the common theme that binds together the near death of the American car industry, the collapse of the credit market, the implosion of the housing market, the SEC's disastrous negligence, the Madoff Ponzi scheme, and the other economic catastrophes of recent months.

Consider the examples of the SEC and GM, which would appear to have nothing to do with each other. The traditional critiques of the SEC have been that it was underfunded and didn't have up-to-date laws needed to regulate sophisticated financial transactions in evolving markets. That's not accurate. The SEC is a gargantuan bureaucracy of 3,500 employees and a budget of $900 million—vast compared with the offices that actually did ferret out fraud in the marketplace. And the general investigative powers of the SEC are so broad that it needs no additional statutory power to delve into virtually any market activity that it suspects is improper, fraudulent, or deceptive. After each business scandal (Enron, Wall Street analysts, Madoff …), the SEC claims a need for more money and statutory power, yet those don't help. The SEC has all the money and people and laws it needs. For ideological reasons, it just didn't want to do its job, and on the rare occasions when it did, it didn't know how.

GM's excuses—that its UAW contract and health care costs make it too top heavy to compete—are partially true but ignore a simple reality: These are the self-inflicted wounds of a company that chose a path of least resistance rather than confront the need for dynamism and innovation. GM and its brethren forged a partnership with the UAW that avoided difficult choices on legacy costs, because the world seemed to permit it. Similarly, they opposed meaningful reform in health care. While this approach may have been tolerable in the '50s and '60s, it made no sense over the past 30 years. The auto industry preferred protection to competition. And when it had to compete, it wasn't up to the task...

Of course, in the end, Spitzer being Spitzer, can't be faithful to his free market theme and jumps in bed with the whore institutions that don't do honest work:

We must rebuild these two institutions. If we don't infuse them with a culture of change and love of competition, they will fail once again. The SEC should go out and hire some of the young, recently laid-off traders from hedge funds and investment banks. They need work, and better than any group of lawyers or agent-investigators, they know what trading patterns and practices to examine and where to drop subpoenas to find the skeletons. The SEC should welcome the creative tension that results from having state regulators or other federal agencies such as the CFTC on the beat. And GM should use government funding for green technology to truly transform itself: It should build the infrastructure for plug-in technology that will be the next iteration of "gas stations."

Disgusting. The government agencies, the SEC and CFTC, should be abolished. GM should be allowed to sink or swim. That's what free markets are about.The problems at SEC and CFTC are not the personnel at the agencies, but their designated task of controlling markets. As Hayek warned, the evil will always circle such agencies--and not for the good.

Dogs Barked along with the New President.

A last minute surveillance of the perimeter of the area surrounding the Capitol, on the night before the inauguration, convinced me that the only way to assure a good vantage point of Barack Obama taking the oath of office would be to head out at perhaps 3:00 AM and stand in the cold for 8 hours.

Since I do not view Obama as someone I think I would really want to spend more than 20 minutes waiting for in the comfort of an office reception area, waiting with thousands upon thousands of others, for hours, in freezing temperatures in an era when Al Gore tells us the earth is overflowing with heat, was not an option. Since I hadn't had dinner, my fall back position was to grab some soup and a cranberry muffin at the nearby Au Bon Pain at Union Station and then head home.

At Au Bon Pain, I met Tanya, orignally from Minnesota and Gero, originally from Germany. They now live in North Carolina. One thing lead to another, and soon I gave them a complete lecture on the business cycle, Austrian economics, the failure of mainstream economics, FA Hayek's views on the proper methodology of science as he expounded in his great book, The Counter Revolution of Science. At some point, someone had decided to look at a watch, two hours had passed, and they both remarked that the time had flown by. I took that as a compliment.

It was 1:45AM and they were about to head out to find a spot on the mall from which to watch the inauguration. Since they didn't have VIP passes, they had mapped out a well thought out plan. I headed home. Early the next morning, I racked my brain to think of a warm and cozy spot from which to watch the inauguration, a spot with some of the atmosphere of the goings on. Then it hit me, The Mayflower Hotel ---a cozy lobby with televisions and about the only spot from where a Democrat made news during the Bush years. The Mayflower was, of course, where the the one time Democratic Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, screwed a hooker.

And so, with the knowledge that my viewing location was a spot that brought short-term pleasure and long-term disaster to at least one politician, I watched the inauguration in the luxury, splendor, warmth and table service of the Mayflower.

Gregg Levine was not as fortunate. He actually had tickets to the inauguration and thought the power elite were actually out to make things comfortable for him. Hee, hee.

Levine writes on what really happened:

So, I don't even know how to write about this without it sounding like bitter grousing, and frankly, I'm a little embarrassed to have to report that after five hours of standing in the bitter cold, getting pushed and shoved to the point where you start to feel for your safety, and being herded to and fro, the most I can report about the inauguration is that the 21-gun salute is really loud.

So loud, in fact, you can feel it outside the security perimeter. That's right, despite having in hand magic purple tickets, and lining up hours before the gates opened, I saw nothing. I heard, beyond the guns, nothing.

I followed all the signs, I went to the appointed spot. . . and what? There was almost no one who had a clue of what was to happen next...The lines for the Purple Tickets and the lines for the Yellow Tickets crisscrossed at numerous points causing every bit of the road-blocking mayhem you would imagine.

Over the next 90 minutes, I traced a circle with a diameter of no more than 20 feet. We then came to a stop just outside a fence within within full view of the metal detectors and the uniforms that were staffing them.

And, there I stood. I stood next to women from Florida who had saved for months to make this trip. I stood next to a woman separated by the crowd from her husband. I stood next to people who had been standing in that same spot since 5am. . . since, in one case, 3am...

People chanted, "Let us in." People chanted, "We have tickets." People chanted "we are purple," waving their precious 4x6 inch tickets in the air.

And then they just started begging and shouting. Let us in. We have tickets. We've been here for hours. Let us in. And then it was noon. And everything stopped...then I overhear a conversation between people waiting on my side of the fence with a well-insulated security officer on the other side. Those with me were begging to be let in for the speech. The officer said, "I can't tell you anything that will make you feel
better."...

And then a wild quiet fell over everyone. It was actually quite amazing to behold then I distanced myself from my disappointment. Small groups gathered around people's phones and radios to listen to the inaugural address. And there they stood and strained. I tried to listen, but I couldn't really hear, so I decided to just keep walking. . . and as I walked, I kept walking by these groups of people listening to the speech. I have a picture of some folks gathered around a police canine car that had its windows open and the radio turned up. Dogs barked along with the new president.

I wonder if the dogs were barking, "You fools!"? There's a lesson to learn here. Don't count on what the power elite promise, whether it's inside access to the inside show, or retirement money for when the gray really starts to grow. You see they have chains and fences and games for you too. They will tell you to go this way then that, stop and go.

Tis' much better finding your own way each and every day. It's the only smart move, you know .

Eliot Spitzer Speaks About the Incoming Treasury Secretary; Reports Losing Money in Madoff Scam

When your political career is shot candor becomes easier.

Spitzer has begun writing a bi-weekly column for Slate, and he attended Slates' Christmas Party, where a group of journalists were able to throw a few questions at him.

Vanity Fair's Maureen Tkacik asked the question that clearly signaled Spitzer's political life is, for now, over, as he gave a lukewarn endorsement of the incoming Treasury Secretary:

I asked Eliot Spitzer what he made of incoming Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and sure enough he gave a reply markedly lacking in discretion: “Tim is a good guy, but he’s not a thinker. He’s the status quo."

At the party, he also spoke to Henry Blodget:

Add the name Eliot Spitzer to the list of prominent people allegedly ripped off by Wall Street trader Bernard L. Madoff. Yesterday at Slate's holiday party Spitzer, who is writing a column for the online publication, confirmed that his family's firm had investments with a Madoff subsidiary.

The former governor said that he never met Madoff and wasn't into "the Palm Beach scene," which he described as stuffier than he prefers, but did confirm that his family real estate firm lost money. He shrugged his shoulders in a "what can you do" way, and seemed in good spirits as he talked and joked with the crowd of mostly journalists.

At one point, On the Media's Brooke Gladstone, who like Spitzer is Jewish, joked that "Bernie Madoff was worse for the Jews than anyone since David Berkowitz" and Spitzer replied, "Well, I was New York's second Jewish governor and look what I did."

FT's John Gapper asked him about his becoming a wordsmith:

I went over afterwards to ask him how he was enjoying life as a columnist. “It sucks,” he said with a grin. “I used to be governor of New York”.

Weekend Special: Eliot Spitzer's Call Girl...

...Ashely Dupre speaks to Diane Sawyer.

Hooker Crazed Spitzer Won't Be Charged

Yes, the Democrats are in charge.

In what may be the first sign that the Democrats are now in charge,the office of Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney from Manhattan has issued a statement, less than 48 hours after Obama's victory, stating that the the former Democratic governor of the state of New York, Eliot Spitzer, will not face federal charges for money laundering and other activities surrounding his use of a flock of hookers.

Part of Garcia's statement said:

...we have determined that there is insufficient evidence to bring charges against Mr. Spitzer for any offense relating to the withdrawal of funds for, and his payments to, the Emperors Club VIP.

Insufficient evidence? Spitzer structured withdrawals to avoid having cash withdrawal notices filed by the bank. He did this to avoid detection of his criminal activity (The hiring of prostitutes, such as Ashley "Kristin" Dupre, see pic). This is money laundering 101.

Based on the evidence, OJ Simpson could win a case against Spitzer, in Nevada.

Spitzer's Hooker Up To Her Old, Uh, Tricks?

Ex-Gov Eliot Spitzer may end up in the slammer, but what must be klling him right now is that he can't get any more of this action.

NyPo reports on Ashley "Kristen" Dupre so you can decide for yourself what she is up to, here.

Hooker Happy Spitzer Left Paper Trail Of Other Mysterious Hotel Room Rentals

Totally disgraced, former New York governor, and former New York state Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, who once remarked:

Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail.

has left a paper trail to some very curious Renaissance Mayflower Hotel room bookings paid for with campaign funds. The Mayflower is where Spitzer had his his now infamous Feb. 13 stay in Room 871 with call girl Ashley Dupre, a k a "Kristen."

The purpose of the two Jan. 14 payments of $411 - listed in a legally required report to the state Board of Elections - was unclear. Spitzer's official schedule shows he was in Albany on Jan. 14 with no public appearances.

Let The Show Trial Begin!

Billions upon billions in mortgage losses, and the Feds bust these two poor saps, Matthew Tannin and Ralph R. Cioffi--subprime fund managers at the defunct Bear Stearns....

While the real criminals, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, get away...


...and the counterfeiting, that will really take out the middle class, goes on to this day!

Last look Bernanke is printing new money (M2NSA) at a 10.0% plus rate...and you wonder why prices are climbing? When the inflation rate hits 20%, and it will, can you imagine the price collusion show trials we will have?

To the execs reading this blog, keep in mind what the show trial expert of all-time, Eliot Spitzer, said, before he got busted for his own (heh, heh) private shows:

Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail.