The Super Majority

Officials Knew of AIG Bonuses Months Before Firestorm

As American International Group chief executive Edward M. Liddy returns to Washington to face Congress today, new details are emerging about how long federal officials were aware of the company’s recent bonus payments to its executives and of how inflammatory the payments could be.

Documents show that senior officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York received details about the bonuses more than five months before the firestorm erupted and were deeply engaged with AIG as well as outside lawyers, auditors and public relations firms about the potential controversy. But the New York Fed did not raise the alarm with the Obama administration until the end of February.

Timothy F. Geithner, who became Treasury secretary early this year, was the head of the New York Fed when it became aware of the bonus details. But his name is not among those of senior New York Fed officials mentioned in the summaries of phone calls, correspondence and other documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Read the Full Article at the Washington Post

Obama Prepares to Slam Life Insurance, Securities Dealers with Higher Taxes

President Barack Obama proposed raising money to pay for his health-care overhaul by imposing $58 billion in new taxes on securities dealers, life insurance products and Americans with valuable estates.

The eight new proposals, outlined in budget documents released today, are in addition to more than $1 trillion in tax increases over the next decade the president wants to impose beginning in 2011. Those would include higher rates for top earners and restrictions on tax-avoidance techniques commonly used by U.S.-based multinational corporations.

Frank Keating, president of the Washington-based American Council of Life Insurers, warned against imposing the new taxes. “Seventy-five million American families rely on the products offered by life insurers for their financial and retirement security,” Keating, the former Republican governor of Oklahoma, said in a statement. “This is absolutely the wrong time to make it more expensive for families to obtain the security and peace of mind our products provide.”

Read the Full Article at Bloomberg

Obama’s Lobbyists

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama declared that, “lobbyists won’t find a job in my White House.” Now President Obama takes a different view of lobbyists.

The Senate is expected soon to approve anti-tobacco lobbyist William Corr for the second-highest post at the Department of Health and Human Services. He is the former executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and, until recently, a registered lobbyist.

The Obama team has said Mr. Corr will recuse himself from tobacco-related matters. Sure. Mr. Corr’s former group received $3.3 million over the past five years from pharmaceutical companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some of those firms profit from nicotine gum, patches and other smoking-cessation aids.

Read the Full Article at Washington Times

Democrats Must Force Murtha to Resign

Or be now and forever the party of corruption:

The headquarters of Murtech, in a low-slung, bland building in a Glen Burnie business park, has its blinds drawn tight and few signs of life. On several days of visits, a handful of cars sit in the parking lot, and no trucks arrive at the 10 loading bays at the back of the building.

Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech’s most striking feature is its owner — Robert C. Murtha Jr., 49. He is the nephew of Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has significant sway over the Defense Department’s spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

Robert Murtha said he is not at liberty to discuss in detail what his company does, but for four years it has subsisted on defense contracts, according to records and interviews.

Read the Full Article at Blogs for Victory

White House Threatens to Destroy Opponents of Chrysler Bankrupcy

A leading bankruptcy attorney representing hedge funds and money managers told ABC News Saturday that Steve Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration’s Auto Industry Task Force, threatened one of the firms, an investment bank, that if it continued to oppose the administration’s Chrysler bankruptcy plan, the White House would use the White House press corps to destroy its reputation.

The White House and a spokesperson for the investment bank in question challenged the accuracy of the story.

“The charge is completely untrue,” said White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton, “and there’s obviously no evidence to suggest that this happened in any way.”

Thomas Lauria, Global Practice Head of the Financial Restructuring and Insolvency Group at White & Case, told ABC News that Rattner suggested to an official of the boutique investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners that officials of the Obama White House would embarrass the firm for opposing the Obama administration plan, which President Obama announced Thursday, and which requires creditors to accept roughly 29 cents on the dollar for an estimated $6.8 billion owed by Chrysler.

Read the Full Article at ABC News