2010 News Notes

The materials on this page are collected in more or less calendar order from items deleted on other pages but which remain interesting. We suggest that you search this page using the Google search function in the upper right part of this page - using a key work or phrase of interest to you - it will find that subject anywhere in the entire site.

President Obama - while a United States Senator from Illinois before his election - used the "hold" rules against appointments just as Senators are using the rule against his appointments today. He has complained about what he considers the inappropriate delay in appointments during the last week - even though he used the same process in the Senate while there. 02-02-10

The President is about in line with the schedule of Presidential Appointments of recent Presidents. The process is a always slowed by the problem of finding people who will leave established professions and jobs to take a public position which may require a move to another city and a disruption of about everything. Also, the background vetting is a complex and timing consuming process for every President - but worth the trouble and time to prevent embarrassment for both the President and the candidate later. Most nominations go through the Senate confirmation process routinely, although it takes some time. A few, of course, get tangled up in all sorts of politics about the job, the policy around the job, their own backgrounds or policy positions, or the political "holds" of particular Senators. Even with all this - jobs are filled on almost a daily basis. In the meantime, open positions are filled by "hold over" appointments from prior administrations, or by senior civil servants from the agency involved. 02-01-10

Senator Kit Bond - a longtime hack politician from Missouri, is retiring and on the way out, dishing out another in a long history of the worst smell of Missouri county politics. He is "holding" the nomination of Obama GSA nominee Martha Johnson for reasons lost in his mind somewhere. This leaves the GSA - the Nation's largest purchasing and management agency, in the hands of a temporary fill-in leader. Bond is known for taking illegal campaign contributions which he has had to cough up later in places as remote as Butte Montana. 01-29-10

Sanders on the Future of the Fed

WASHINGTON, January 27 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today that the issue of Ben Bernanke’s reappointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve has as much to do with the future as the past.

Sanders said that a new Fed chairman must do more to stop credit card ripoffs, provide credit to small businesses, break up big banks and be truthful with taxpayers.

Sanders is leading the Senate opposition to a second term for Bernanke. First appointed by President George W. Bush, Bernanke’s term expires on Sunday.

In the future, Sanders said, “The American people need a chairman of the Federal Reserve who will require bailed-out banks to stop ripping off consumers and small businesses by charging usurious interest rates and sky-high fees. The Fed needs to tell bailed-out banks that they cannot charge 25 percent or 30 percent interest rates on credit cards and other loans.

“The American people need a Federal Reserve committed to fulfilling its mandate of maximum employment. The Fed can do this by providing low interest loans to small- and medium-sized businesses to create jobs in the productive economy. Under Ben Bernanke, small business lending is in freefall.

“The American people need a chairman of the Federal Reserve who will break-up too-big-to-fail banks so that they no longer pose a catastrophic risk to the economy, just like the Bank of England is doing.

“The American people need a chairman of the Federal Reserve who will tell the American people exactly who has received over $2 trillion in taxpayer assistance from the Fed since the financial crisis started. This money does not belong to the Fed. It belongs to the American people. The American people have a right to know where their money is going.”

Sanders made the case for blocking Bernanke from a second term in an editorial response published today by USA Today. To read it, click here.

“It is clear to almost everyone,” the senator wrote, “that Chairman Bernanke was asleep at the switch while Wall Street became the largest gambling casino in the history of the world and hurtled into insolvency. His failure to adequately regulate financial institutions should not be rewarded with a reappointment.”

In 1972, the Congress created citizen "Advisory Committees" across the government. There is something over 1200 of them at the moment, and even the GAO openly admits to not being sure about where they all are in government.

The number of openings goes as high as 60,000, but they are created on a more or less individual basis by agencies and various parts of the Federal Government. "Citizen" was the operative work in the idea. Over the years, many of the positions have been held by Lobbyists - paid representatives of specialized interest groups of various sorts - hardly citizen representatives envisioned by the original legislation that created them.

The President has decided to block lobbyists from the those committees starting immediately. This is a huge decision in returning the government to the people. 12-01-09

Security related appointees are meeting the with President today - trying to know what happened in their agencies that allowed the Christmas bomber on a plane to Detroit. The bomber's attempt to destroy an airliner on Christmas day is putting serious light on White House appointees - patronage officials - on the spot to explain why he slipped through various screening processes. In general, it appears that the segmented intelligence services did not talk to each other - but that is the subject of endless meetings now and the next weeks. The greatest immediate impact will be on pending nominations and the conduct of Senators in the confirmation process. 01-05-10

Bernard Sanders, Senator from Vermont, is blocking confirmation of Bernanke in effort to limit Fed powers. The personal privilege "hold" can be blasted from the nomination by 60 Senators. That is expected to happen. PA Page on "Senatorial Holds" 12-3-09 11-04-09 - Senators Bunning (R-KY), and DeMint, (R-SC) added "holds" today - for a variety of reasons related to Federal Reserve policy.

Saturday: Both the White House and the Senate leadership are taking a new look at the possibility that Fed Chair nominee Ben Bernanke might not be confirmed - and seem to be moving to push hard for confirmation next week. The problem is that most of the discontent among Senators is among those who have issues with the Federal Reserve Bank itself - and its structure and policy. One of the serious concerns is the impact of an unstable Fed for weeks or months on markets and banking in general. A vote today would look more like a narrow win for the confirmation in light of this thinking. 01-23-10 -- Friday - Afternoon: The count of Senator votes Friday afternoon suggests Ben Bernanke cannot be confirmed. Looks like a loser! Friday Noon: The Senate leadership is going to let Ben Bernanke hang out on his confirmation vote. The leadership seems to be retreating from all-out support for his nomination as it comes up for confirmation. He may just be a victim of political atmosphere. 01-22-10

Just before recessing for Christmas, the United States Senate confirmed a couple of dozen Presidential Appointments in a single vote. Six other nominations were not confirmed and were returned to the President to either re-nominate or select new nominations for the positions. All of the returned nominations faced huge opposition by the conservative parts of the Senate. This process is governed by a rule of the Senate that requires certain unconfirmed nominations be returned if there is a 30 day recess pending. 01-01-10

The President is Re-Submitting those Nominations Returned because of the Senate Christmas Recess

President Obama has re-nominated a number of candidates for federal appointments to the Senate for action when the body returns to work next week. Some of these were nominations not fully completed, some were controversial, being under "holds" by various Senators. The process will pick up where it left off in December. 1-15-10

WASHINGTON, January 25 – In a letter to Senate colleagues, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today offered four reasons why Democrats should oppose the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Here is the letter:

The American people today are suffering through the worst economy since the Great Depression with 17.3 percent of the American workforce either unemployed or underemployed. Millions more have lost their homes, their savings, their health care and their pensions. At a time like this let me provide four reasons why Ben Bernanke should not be confirmed as chairman of the Fed.

1) Not only was Mr. Bernanke first nominated to the Fed by President George W. Bush, but he served in the Bush administration as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. Let us never forget that the Bush years, even before the collapse of Wall Street, were an economic disaster for the average American. Mr. Bernanke, who was recently endorsed for reappointment by Alan Greenspan, played a major role in the deregulatory efforts that enabled major financial institutions to engage in reckless and illegal behavior. The American people gave us the responsibility to bring about change, not the maintenance of the status quo. Why, at this difficult moment in American history, should we reappoint Wall Street’s candidate as chairman of the Fed?

2) One of the main functions of the Fed is to maintain the safety and soundness of our financial system. No one can deny that Mr. Bernanke, as chairman of the Fed, was asleep at the wheel while Wall Street became the largest gambling casino in the history of the world and hurtled into insolvency – at enormous cost to our country. Not since the Great Depression has our financial system been as unsafe, unsound and unstable than under Ben Bernanke's tenure as chairman of the Fed. Why should Mr. Bernanke be rewarded with reappointment after he failed so terribly to do his job?

3) As part of the bailout, the Fed lent out trillions of dollars in virtually zero-interest loans to large financial institutions. Mr. Bernanke has consistently refused to provide the transparency needed so that the American people can learn which banks received those loans and the terms that were provided to them. In addition, the Fed continues to keep secret a number of documents related to its role in the AIG bailout. Why should this type of secrecy be tolerated?

4) The Fed, today, has the tools to significantly improve our economy and a mandate to conduct monetary policy in support of full employment. It has the authority to protect consumers by lowering the outrageously high interest rates that millions are paying. It has the authority to provide low-interest loans to credit-worthy small and medium size business that are in desperate need of that capital which will enable them to create the new jobs our economy needs. It has the authority to require bailed out banks to modify home loans to allow homeowners to stay in their homes. It has the authority to begin breaking up those huge financial institutions that, in a number of cases, are even bigger today than they were when we bailed them out because they were “too big to fail.”

Instead of confirming one of the key architects of George Bush’s economic agenda, a new nominee could transform the Fed into a central bank committed to the needs of the middle class of this country rather than powerful Wall Street executives responsible for the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Three United States Senators placed "holds" on the nomination of Chairman Ben Bernanke to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank for another term. The issues relate to the "bailout" issues of the last 15 months and how both the Fed and Bernanke functioned during that period. These are issue of policy, not impropriety. The nomination was approved by the confirmation committee in the Senate, and Majority Leader Reid will seek cloture if other discussions on policy do not cause the Senators in question to release the holds. The Chairman's term ends in two weeks. 01-19-20.

Erroll Southers, the President's Nominee to head the Transportation Safety Administration has withdrawn his name. His confirmation had been blocked by a far right Senator who was leveraging the nomination to stop unionizing of the TSA. But Southers could have survived that - but had several personal issues related to misuse of secure materials earlier came up after the nomination.. That conduct in the past was more than the nomination could overcome. The lesson is for potential candidates to "reveal all" during the vetting process prior to nomination. The White House got caught because Southers had not told of his misconduct during the FBI and White House checks and it caught up with him. See "Clean Up Your Act." 01-20-10

The wife of John H Johnson who was founder of Ebony Magazine, Jet, and a variety of other publications directed to the African American community, died today. John Johnson was a frequent Presidential Appointee, including as a member of the United Nations Commission in 1969. 01-01-10

Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget - father and groom-to-be.

Director Orszag a divorced father of two, father of a child with a recent lover, now is about to be married to a third lady. The story of this high ranking Presidential Appointee is amusing Washington - and apparently not destroying his credibility - at least on numbers larger than three. 01-11-10

The US Senators from Pennsylvania cannot agree on a nominee to recommend to the President for US Attorney. A temporary US Attorney is managing that office for now - but this hang-up is no compliment to either the White House when it does not make a nomination nor the Senators for not taking care of their state's needs in an important legal office. 1-08-10