Persons of Interest: Congresspeople Who Switched TARP Vote Then Left Office
[UPDATE below.]
For a while I have wanted to produce a stunning expose on how the financial sector took care of the Congressmen and women who lost their seats because they switched from “no” to “yes” on TARP back in October 2008. I have made some initial inquiries and paid someone to do the cross-referencing, but I don’t have the time to dig into the people who fit the profile. Rather than sit on this for another few months, I decided to release my findings to the millions of internet journalists who may smell a rat.
Just to refresh everyone’s memory, the House actually voted against the $700 billion TARP package the first time, on Monday, September 29, 2008. Then the Senate passed it, and the House voted again on Friday, October 3, 2008. This time it passed.
So what happened during that significant week? Obviously a bunch of representatives changed their votes. The following changed their initial “no” vote to “yes”:
Abercrombie, Neil D-HI
Alexander, Rodney R-LA
Baca, Joe D-CA
Barrett, J. Gresham R-SC
Berkley, Shelley D-NV
Biggert, Judy R-IL
Boustany, Charles W. Jr. R-LA
Braley, Bruce L. D-IA
Buchanan, Vern R-FL
Carson, Andre D-IN
Cleaver, Emanuel D-MO
Coble, Howard R-NC
Conaway, K. Michael R-TX
Cuellar, Henry D-TX
Cummings, Elijah E. D-MD
Dent, Charles W. R-PA
Edwards, Donna F. D-MD
Fallin, Mary R-OK
Frelinghuysen, Rodney P. R-NJ
Gerlach, Jim R-PA
Giffords, Gabrielle D-AZ
Green, Al D-TX
Hirono, Mazie K. D-HI
Hoekstra, Peter R-MI
Jackson, Jesse Jr. D-IL
Jackson-Lee, Sheila D-TX
Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. D-MI
Knollenberg, Joe R-MI
Kuhl, John R. “Randy” R-NY
Lee, Barbara D-CA
Lewis, John D-GA
Mitchell, Harry E. D-AZ
Myrick, Sue Wilkins R-NC
Ortiz, Solomon P. D-TX
Pascrell, Bill Jr. D-NJ
Pastor, Ed D-AZ
Ramstad, Jim R-MN
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana R-FL
Rush, Bobby L. D-IL
Schiff, Adam B. D-CA
Schmidt, Jean R-OH
Scott, David D-GA
Shadegg, John B. R-AZ
Shuster, Bill R-PA
Solis, Hilda D-CA
Sullivan, John R-OK
Sutton, Betty D-OH
Terry, Lee R-NE
Thompson, Mike D-CA
Thornberry, Mac R-TX
Tiberi, Patrick J. R-OH
Tierney, John F. D-MA
Wamp, Zach R-TN
Watson, Diane E. D-CA
Welch, Peter D-VT
Woolsey, Lynn C. D-CA
Wu, David D-OR
Yarmuth, John A. D-KY
In addition, McDermott, Jim (D-WA) switched from “yes” to “no,” while Weller, Jerry (R-IL) initially didn’t vote but then voted “yes.”
Now of the above who switched from either an initial “no” or an initial “abstain” to a “yes” by the end of the week, which did not survive the 2008 election?
Only two: Knollenberg, Joe (R-MI) and Kuhl, John R. “Randy” (R-NY). (News accounts of their defeats here.) Clearly, if one suspects that the banking interests promised to take care of any representatives who were hurt by their TARP vote, Knollenberg and Kuhl would be the guys to investigate.
(Also of possible interest are Jim Ramstad [R-MN] who switched from “no” to “yes” but had already announced his retirement, Jerry Weller [R-IL] who initially didn’t vote then said “yes” but had already announced his retirement, and Hilda Solis [D-CA] who switched from “no” to “yes” but was named Labor Secretary in the new Obama administration.)
Note that I didn’t completely double-check the work of my assistant on this. I have made sure that Knollenberg, Kuhl, Ramstad, and Solis all switched their votes from “no” to “yes,” and I have confirmed their fates as described above. However, I did not independently verify the long list above. So if you plan on doing your own work on this, before you run with a story it would be smart for you to verify everything yourself.
The way to do this is to check the Roll Call votes. Here is the list of Ayes (Yeas), Nays, Present, and Non Votes from the Monday vote (when TARP failed to pass), and here is the list from the Friday vote when it passed.
Also, if you want to verify who is still in office, use this.
Release the hounds!
UPDATE: There was some confusion because if you click on the link above for the roll call vote on the original TARP motion, it looks like I linked to the wrong thing. But I didn’t. Here is the explanation (look at the “Note” for 9/29) in case you don’t want to take my word for it. As is its wont, the House tried to tack on the TARP to a different bill, H.R. 3997.
I have ben doing research on thisa kinda stuff for the better part of 45 years. There is now one inescapable truth. Humanity is cooked. I won’t see the worst of it b-4 I pass away having see the evolution of most of it after my father fought in WW II as a Navcal Aviator and became an aerospace executive during the Cold War having met many of his friends over for dinner when I was a kid including paperclip people such as Werner Von Braun, the head of German Intelligence on the Eastern Front for the SS Rynhardt Gaylen and many high ranking offivers and scientists who worked in the CIA and the Pentagon. I am the Black Sheep in the family disowning my family in the 60’s when I became a radical dissident in SF.
In any event here is my truth. BTW Thanks for putting up all the names of those criminals who voted for TARP. You saved me the time from going over to Thomas.gov and sorting it out.
PART I
Game Over:
America is firmly entrenched in an inverted totalitarian corporate state which a democracy cannot possibly function.
Chris Hedges explains this truth in his new book, “The Death of the Liberal Class”.
Hedges reaffirm what any rational person still capable of avoiding denial knows we have become enslaved to a corporate state which the people can no longer redress their grievances in a properly constituted representative form of democracy.
Example: The U.S. House of Representatives after getting an avalanche of phone calls, letters, emails, telegrams and personal door banging at the Rayburn and Longworth Offices expressing their outrage that Congress not even consider the notion that “we the people” are going to tolerate such moral degradation as having to pony up taxpayer money and be part of a criminal conspiracy of massive criminal fraud and racketeering by Wall Street banking establishments to further perpetrate this criminal enterprise by subsidizing fraudulent based insolvent CDO’s (Collateralized Debt Obligations) and other negotiable financial devices all of which are a fiction (fiat) to start with.
So what happens after the U.S. House got the message from the American people in September of 2008?
Initially the Congress and American people refused to be accessories to the largest criminal fraud in the history of humanity when the House of Representatives got our message by voting down the $700 billion (HR 1424) Toxic Asset Relief Package, (TARP), when it first came to a roll call vote on September 29, 2008.
Then it moved to the U.S. Senate for their vote and it was passed.
It was during this period after the House voted down HR 1424 on September 29, 2008 that Treasury Secretary Paulson after meeting with President Bush and Hubbard, Bush’s head of the President’s Economic Council Advisers came to the House and got a closed door session with Congressional leaders.
In the closed door session after the first vote was cast Paulson had in no uncertain terms demanded the House take a re-vote again because if TARP was not passed to prevent losses at his former Investment Bank of Goldman Sachs, and others; Merrill Lynch and the “too big to fail banks” Citicorp, B of A, and JP Morgan Chase did not go through, then President Bush was prepared to implement FEMA and declare Martial Law on the American people, along with gestures of their lives and families being put in jeopardy and a few carrots for compliance in financial compensation.
In a shocking reversal of votes the House put HR 1424 back up on the block for a re-vote after Secretary Paulson’s closed door visit and on Friday, October 3, 2008 the House passed HR 1424 TARP package..
This in effect was extortion and a furtherance of criminal racketeering by which Congress was now made an accessory to the largest criminal fraud and racketeering scheme in the history of humanity, including the President of the United States George Bush, all of which are high crimes and misdemeanors; impeachable offenses subject to Federal indictments.
And if that were not enough, this same taxpayer money played a duel benefit for many of Paulson’s drinking buddies by cooking the books with taxpayer money above specific income lines meant executive compensation packages with benchmarks were met, and thus huge bonuses were paid out as well, forcing the American people to pay out obscene amounts of money to white collar gangsters engaged in racketeering.
In the 17th century speculators were routinely put to the gallows, yet the American people have lost their collective sanity to allow anyone to receive ungodly amounts of money who were responsible for the financial ruin of so many working American families making millions homeless and destitute, placing these millions of people on Federal subsidy programs for Food Stamps and AFDC notwithstanding being able to get the most essential medical care for conditions that are not getting treated causing further harm and struggle.
PART II
It is not lawful for Congress to engage in RICO Act racketeering on behalf of the American people to subsidize what is massive financial criminal fraud perpetrated upon the American people by those persons in the private Wall Street investment banking empires of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros. and the “too big to fail “ banks of Citi. Corp., B of A , Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase in cahoots with members of the Executive Branch of government at Treasury and its subsidiaries of the SEC/FDIC and the regulatory community who stood to gain from such criminal racketeering.
There is one very noteworthy recent tragic event that may or may not be related to those in the House who switched their vote.
Congresswoman Gabriel Gifford, D-AZ who was recently gunned down was one of those in Congress who switched their vote from “no” to “yes”.
Weather the gunman Gerald Loughner was motivated by that fact is yet to be made clear. It is worth noting and if you’re interested in looking at a composite list of those Congress members who changed their initial TARP votes here is a quick link: http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2010/01/persons-of-interest-congresspeople-who-switched-tarp-vote-then-left-office.html
PART II
You will not find a better example of “class struggle” between the Capitalist Class in our society and the “Labor Class” of the American working sector of Middle Class families in a Sociology textbook.
These Capitalist Class criminals should not have received one Buffalo Head Nickel of Bonus Money, but handed appropriate Federal indictments for massive criminal fraud, and RICO Racketeering by the FBI for jeopardizing our National Security.
And if that were still not enough, Obama in an abrogation of his oath of office by not vigorously pursuing indictments for those responsible for this and the massive criminal fraud on Wall Street, himself the largest recipient of Wall Street campaign donations in history, instead opts to reappoint many of the same architects and lynchpin cogs in the Neoliberal policies of deregulation that created the demise of millions of American families in the first place.
Obama now surrounds himself with economic advisers and appointees of people you would think you would need that are critical to prevent another financial catastrophe from occurring and clean this mess up with minimal damage as possible to the American people, yet what does Obama do? In an act of self serving insanity Obama appoints the likes of Timothy Geitner, himself a loser at the New York Fed, Ben Bernanke and Larry Summers fueling de-regulation.
What the future will now bring should be of no secret anymore and is why so many people I know of have converted their assets into hard assets and are expatriating this country and heading for the Netherlands, Patagonia, Canada and not looking back. We all have ourselves to thank for allowing Democracy to be taken over by white collar low hanging fruit.
Do the math. It’s over.
In further abrogation to his oath of office President Barack Obama failed to perform the duties and obligations of his office including:
1. Failure to make any kind of assault on the corporate apparatus that has co-opted
all branches of this government,
2. Failure to restore Habeas Corpus,
3. Failure to prosecute War Crimes & fulfill his oath of office,
4. Failure to dismantle GITMO & Rendition
5. Failure to end two wars of aggression that serve the corporate state all of which are in clear violation of International Law by Treaty conventions we signed.
6. Failure to prosecute massive criminal fraud on Wall Street and instead reappointed the people responsible for the crimes.
Epilogue
These failures constitute Obama as an accessory to the furtherance of war crimes and an abrogation of his oath of office.
If people aren’t even capable anymore to acknowledge the Kucinich’s of the world as a leader pointing out the decaying rotted corpse of a dyeing democracy and speak truth to power it’s over.
I suggest a careful reading of our Declaration of Independence and an objective observation of how this nation is now governed. There are inescapable truths.
Judging by the man who is now in office backed by Wall Street we have little time.