Sam Brownback cannot be taken seriously while ex-banker Lynn Mitchelson remains a campaign co-chair.

Some questions for future Kansas Governor Sam Brownback:

1. Why did you choose a provably corrupt public official to be a campaign co-chair?
2. Why is part of your campaign team giving a no-bid legal contract to the Democratic Party Chairman’s law firm, at the largest Kansas college, and when the college’s lawyer has clear ethical problems?
3. Are you trying to make Sarah Palin’s PAC look like a well-run organization?
4. Should we assume that you have given up hopes of becoming a future US President?
5. Is this how you plan on running the State of Kansas — through reckless acts of incompetence, corruption, and cover-ups, then followed by failed attempts to intimidate your critics (and even top news agencies)?  That’s what your choice of campaign co-chairs tells us.
6. Do you realize that for every one liberal “Republican” to whom your campaign is reaching out, you are losing — perhaps permanently — the support of two or three conservative voters?
7. Really, Senator? Really?

RedState readers, I can explain to you the national banking crisis, in three words:  Meet Lynn Mitchelson.

For 15 years, the ex-banker Lynn Mitchelson has been one of seven at-large elected trustees at Johnson County Community College.  In large part because he is now unelectable, Mitchelson will permanently retire from public office in 2011.

Mitchelson once had a reputation in Kansas City as someone who could “fix banks.”  Troubled banks would hire him as a temporary CEO, and, in theory, he would bring them back to health.   But now that his record in elected office is widely known, I’ll be surprised if he is ever again hired by a bank.  Why?  Because he is directly responsible for much of lawlessness, failed cover-ups, and retaliation that has become commonplace at JCCC.  The only thing more embarrassing than the corruption in which Mitchelson has participated, is that he has been so unsuccessful at carrying it out.  I did not properly understand the phrase “the cover-up is worse than the crime,” until I had witnessed first-hand Mitchelson at work.  Time and time again, Mitchelson’s actions have brought national embarrassment to this college, the largest college in Kansas.

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Lately, President Obama has tried to assure the American people that he’s working really hard to get our money back from that TARP bailout he’s been using as a revolving slush fund. Nonetheless, since yesterday was a day ending in “y”, it was evidently time for another bailout. Rules are rules, after all.

This time it was $30 billion for loans to small businesses:

“The $30 billion in loan financing would come from money repaid by big banks that got help from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program…That $30 billion would be used to create the Small Business Lending Fund, separate and distinct from TARP, according to two senior administration officials who outlined the program on condition of anonymity before Obama’s announcement.”

Did you catch that little two-step? Small businesses can get money for lending that comes from TARP but somehow…isn’t TARP. The distinction sounds like nothing more than window dressing, but why hide the truth? Maybe it’s because past TARP recipients (sometimes forced recipients) have been stigmatized and demonized by their association with this seemingly endless bailout fund. Or maybe it’s because businesses have learned an important lesson about TARP: where there’s a carrot, there will be sticks. Big sticks, and if I was a business owner considering an entanglement with TARP, I’d be more than a little wary of getting whacked.

Anyone can see that small businesses have been struggling. But even if President Obama assigned every last penny of TARP to this new TARP-redux for small businesses, he still won’t have addressed the real issue preventing robust private sector growth – the looming impact of smothering new taxes, mandates, regulations, and payoffs for Big Labor. These are some serious sticks that will beat down private enterprise with or without a loan from TARP.

If we continue down this path, the sustainable economic growth and long-term job creation we want simply won’t appear. Instead, we need to provide a commerce-friendly environment of lower taxes, lower debt, and lower spending. Not to mention we need to close down TARP to prevent the White House from using $700 billion of your money to bailout whatever company, industry, or sector it wants.

Another of my composite graphics.  Click image to enlarge.

Jefferson’s Rebels:  http://jeffersonsrebels.blogspot.com/2010/01/obama-demonizes-banks-and-financial_28.html

Attempting to get his mojo back after Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, President Obama is testing his populist chops:

“We want our money back,” Barack Obama has told US banks, announcing a levy on large financial institutions to help repay the notorious bailout he imposed last year.”

Some backround:

“The Treasury estimated net losses on its $700 billion bailout program at $68.5 billion for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2009.”

How much of this loss is from banks?

“A senior Treasury official said the bank investments will ultimately produce a positive return for taxpayers.”

So, the president is taxing banks to recoup losses incurred by other TARP recipients. To make matters worse, those taxes will be passed on to average Americans in the form of higher bank fees. Nice job Mr. President, you aim for fatcats and hit the middle and working classes. As populism goes this is pretty close to being termed an epic fail. Fear not though, the American public is angry and wants its money back. You just have to pick a better target for their ire. As it happens, I have a few suggestions to get you started.

First up, Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner:

“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, while led by Geithner, pressured AIG not to disclose payments it made to such banks as Goldman Sachs Group and Deutsche Bank, to settle swap contracts at the height of the financial crisis, according to a Bloomberg report this morning.”

“Emails between Geithner’s Fed and AIG lawyers show that the embattled insurer originally included the information about the swaps in a draft securities filing. But under review by the Fed, AIG was told to cross out references to the swap payments, which were made at 100 cents on the dollar.
The Fed and AIG have taken heat for months about the secrecy surrounding the swap payments, which totaled $62 billion and have been criticized as a “back door bail out” of banks. When asked about the lack of disclosure during a congressional hearing last year, a New York Fed official said that releasing such information at the height of the financial crisis would have hurt AIG’s ability to operate.”

There you go Mr. President. Here’s a guy who made sure that Wall St. and European fatcats took the American taxpayers for a cool $62 billion. Can’t you just feel the populist juices flowing? The best part is that he works for your administration, so firing him will be a snap. You have the added bonus that he’s a tax cheat and Americans can’t stand the idea that taxes are only something the little people have to pay. With Timmy you get a populist two-fer, but I understand he’s your buddy and you’d hate to fire him in the current job market.

Next up, the architects of that $787 billion taxpayer swindle of a “stimulus” bill.

You had three administration officials give three different numbers for jobs “saved or created” this past weekend. The only number that really matters though, is that unemployment is at 10% nationally. You claimed that without the stimulus unemployment would reach 8%. It’s time to kill this boondoggle before it wastes even more money.

“Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted.”

On second thought, I see that you brought David Plouffe back to right the ship and he intends to campaign this fall on the stimulus being the signature achievement of year One of Obama.

Okay, so far I’m 0-2, but this last one’s gold. Go after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their former head honcho, Jim Johnson. Now that your administration has decided to remove the previous $2oo billion (each) caps for these two entities the American taxpayer is now liable for their $5 trillion of sub-prime mortgage holdings.

“New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A. [Emphasis added] ”

You can explain how community activist groups like ACORN pushed for the Community Re-Investment Act (CRA) that required banks to make risky loans in the name of fairness. You can then explain how noted fixers and prominent Democrats Jim Johnson and Frank Raines made tens of millions while defrauding banks into thinking they were making safe investments, the infamous credit default swaps. Don’t forget to mention how Bernake kept interest rates nice and low, allowing a great big housing bubble to form and why you think this qualifies him to another term. Then, BOOM the housing bubble bursts, wiping out jobs and 401K’s in one fell swoop.

The American public would cheer as you had Johnson frog-marched out of whatever corporate boardroom he’s currently ensconced in. Every media market would cover you as their local ACORN offices were padlocked.

On second thought Mr. President, populism may not be for you after all. The thing of it is, the American people are angry at policies your administration enacted or you supported personally. Your best bet may be to try humility. You see, the American people just don’t cling to their guns and their faith. The American people are pretty partial to Freedom and don’t look kindly on those who want to take it away. Believe it or not sir, a huge majority of Americans are proud of their country and don’t believe our elected leader should be apologizing to every two-bit dictator with a grudge.

Omigod!!! Gee, why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?!? I mean other than all those times the Bush administration wanted to reform these money toilets? All I can say is, “DUH!!!”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) wants a single agency to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to handle the flushing of the financial system further into the crapper. Of course, this isn’t reform. What Frank wants is to replace two entities that are too big to fail with an even bigger one that is much too big to fail.

I’ve got two words for Frank’s suggestion. Epic. Fail.

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Gee, in the week that Democrats suddenly decided that they needed to rebrand themselves as populist crusaders, you’d think that a massive vote in favor of more corporate bailouts would attract some attention:

The Senate Thursday killed a Republican attempt to shut down the Wall Street bailout program.

The defeated proposal would have barred the Treasury Department from releasing any funds remaining from the $700 billion bailout passed last fall. It would not have affected repayment rules for banks and other recipients of bailout money.

GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, who sponsored the amendment, said repealing Treasury’s bailout authority would block Democrats from using the money to finance spending legislation such as a promised “jobs” bill. Thune said about $320 billion is still available.

Here is the list of Democrats who voted to continue to allow Barack Obama to use the TARP program as a slush fund for grants to big corporations and banks:

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The Obama administration has decided to double-down on its class warfare and populist schtick in the wake of the loss of the Democratic filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with the win of Senator-elect Scott Brown. Teh Won has called on Congress to pass a 10-year tax on banks that received TARP money, even if the money, plus interest, was paid back; the cost to the banks is $90 billion over that period.

What could be wrong?

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