From Volume 37, Issue 12 of EIR Online, Published Mar. 26, 2010

United States News Digest

Congress Passes, Obama Signs Nazi 'Health-Care' Bill

March 22 (EIRNS)—The U.S. House of Representatives last night committed an act of simultaneous genocide and suicide. By passing the Senate version of the health bill, including the Nazi-modeled IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board) to dictate death to categories of citizens, without Congressional "interference," the Congress is guilty of mass murder through the denial of health care. It is also committing political suicide, since citizens have already expressed their strong opposition to the measure, through the mass-strike process beginning last August. The vote was 219-12, with all Republicans and 33 Democrats voting against it.

The would-be leaders of the House who stood against the bill on "principle" have rolled over, under orders from the White House, who in turn follow orders from London. Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Luis Gutierrez (Ill.), and Bart Stupak (Mich.), for example, who bragged of their moral stands against the bill, one after another, sold out, to appease the fascists running the Democratic Party and the White House.

Soros's ACORN Is Bankrupt and Breaking Up

March 21 (EIRNS)—ACORN told news media March 19 that it will file for bankruptcy, as many of its regional offices shut down or change their names to avoid association with the group.

Founded as a project of London-Wall Street agent Saul Alinsky under the name Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN became a street enforcer and a centerpiece of the giant money-conduiting apparatus that George Soros put behind Barack Obama's political career.

ACORN was subject to numerous investigations and for election fraud, for having a million dollars embezzled by its leaders, and an FBI sting operation that showed staffers advising on how to run prostitution and avoid taxes. The U.S. Census Bureau stopped partnering with ACORN, the IRS dropped the group from its Income Tax Assistance program, and Congress cut off its Federal funds.

ACORN will give a teleconference to announce its plans for a bankruptcy filing.

Thou Shalt Not Fund Infrastructure, Says White House

March 17 (EIRNS)—Final Congressional passage came March 16 in the Senate, for the $18 billion so-called "jobs bill" initially put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The pitiful-to-vanishing size and character of this tax-break bill masquerading as a White House "jobs, jobs, jobs" offensive, triggered anger from the Congressional Black Caucus and other representatives of most-affected constituencies, in February, when it was filed by Reid. Now it goes to Obama for signature.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the legislation finds that it is supposed to create 234,000 jobs with a Federal expenditure—in the form of payroll tax breaks to businesses that hire—of $13 billion. Assuming it's true, that's 18,000 jobs, of whatever kind—from making steel to answering phones at a hedge fund—per $1 billion in Federal revenue expended. Compare that to 45,000 productive jobs per $1 billion of expenditure, in the Federal infrastructure investment bills Harry Reid used to talk about five years ago.

Lehman Bankruptcy: Case for a New Pecora Commission

March 17 (EIRNS)—On March 16, former New York attorney general and governor Eliot Spitzer, former bank regulator William Black, and Frank Portnoy of the Roosevelt Institute demanded Congressional investigation of the Lehman Brothers bank failure, with all emails and documents subpoenaed, as in AIG case. Spitzer was one of those who helped force the Congressional hearings on the huge AIG fraud and stealing of tax revenue. In the Lehman case, a first investigation on behalf of the bankruptcy court has shown that the investment bank appears to have perpetrated massive accounting fraud, crediting itself with $50 billion in "collateral" off-balance-sheet assets, which was actually of very little value. It used this to leverage its assets by over 30:1, with the New York Federal Reserve smiling on the process.

Spitzer and Black say "accounting is the weapon of choice" in banks' frauds to cover up their bubble of worthless debt "assets." Timothy Geithner's New York Federal Reserve Bank was fully aware, in mid-2008, that Lehman's "collateral" was nearly worthless, but "remained willing to lend to an institution with misleading accounting.... We now know from Valukas [bankruptcy court investigator] and from former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, that the Treasury and the Fed knew that Lehman was massively overstating its on-book asset values." The Fed kept on lending to Lehman against assets it knew were worth little or nothing. One of Geithner's deputies noted that "what these securities are really worth is between Lehman, the SEC, and the world"—in other words, we at the Fed don't care, and won't say a thing.

Lehman's crimes are especially relevant for the kind of "new Pecora hearings" Lyndon LaRouche called for back then, because Lehman's failure has been used by every Wall Street, Obama Administration, and Congressional faker to "justify" the outrageous multi-trillion-dollar bank bailouts which followed.

Cap and Trade: Push Continues for Green Fascism

March 15 (EIRNS)— Last week, while TV cameras were fixed on the health-care players, the Obama Administration continued to push another fascist initiative: cap and trade.

Last month, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) declared the comprehensive "cap-and-trade" legislation dead in the Senate, to be replaced with piecemeal legislation. President Obama then called a meeting for leading players at the White House on March 9, where he made clear that no such approach would be accepted, and that what was required of them was total submission. There is now an effort to re-brand the bill as "pollution reduction" or "job creation" legislation, after eight coal-state Senators sent a letter to the EPA, requesting a halt to the whole process.

The three leaders in this effort are Senators Kerry, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Before the large meeting in the White House, these three met with "industry trade associations," including the American Petroleum Institute, Edison Electric Institute, the Chamber of Commerce, and others. They have since been in a flurry of meetings, trying to sell the plan, while no concrete legislation yet exists. According to Newsweek, earlier this month, Kerry, against the advice of his aides, met with T. Boone Pickens, corporate raider billionaire, a major "wind bag" (and also the man who wrecked Kerry's Presidential bid, by pouring $2 million into the "Swiftboat" ad campaigns), about which way legislation should go.

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