Clinton sought secret info on EU bailout plans as son-in-law's hedge fund gambled on Greece, shared classified information

Clinton sought secret info on EU bailout plans as son-in-law's doomed hedge fund gambled on Greece | Fox News | https://t.co/gE4QdivskM

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) July 1, 2016

Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in 2013 to run for president. But newly released emails from 2012 show that she and Clinton Foundation consultant, Sidney Blumenthal, shared classified information about how German leadership viewed the prospects for a Greek bailout. Clinton also shared “protected” State Department information about Greek bonds with her husband at the same time that her son-in-law aimed his hedge fund at Greece.

That America’s top diplomat kept a sharp eye on intelligence assessing the chances of a bailout of the Greek central bank is not a problem. However, sharing such sensitive information with friends and family would have been highly improper. Federal regulations prohibit the use of nonpublic information to further private interests or the interests of others. The mere perception of a conflict of interest is unacceptable.

Through its press representative, Eaglevale declined to comment for this story. Clinton’s campaign press office did not respond to a request for comment.

Rubio Testimony before Oversight Hearing on ObamaCare Insurance Bailout

ICYMI: Senator Marco Rubio's testimony to House Oversight today about Obamacare insurance company bailouts. - via Darrel Issa

Trillion-Dollar Student Loan Industry to be Bailed Out by Taxpayers

◼ The latest sector to benefit from a taxpayer-subsidized bailout is the taxpayer-subsidized student loan industry. - Political Outcast

Currently, student loan debt is larger than credit card debt. Collectively, students have racked up nearly $1 trillion in loan debt. And it’s all thanks to government taking over the student loan industry which prompting schools and universities to increase their tuition fees and diminish their own aid programs. Students were fed the promise that a college degree would yield them an additional $1 million in income over their lifetime compared to their high school graduate counterparts, so paying off their loans wouldn’t be all that hard, right? But recent studies show that the number has plummeted to $300,000 in additional income, and the average college graduate enters the workforce with $30,000 of debt. Nowadays, most college graduates don’t have much better jobs than those without college degrees, and the one thing they’re guaranteed to have is a giant loan that they will spend the rest of their life trying to pay off.

Is it really worth it anymore to get a college education when it’s become little more than a racket for the loan industry, the university system and the government that just wants to create another entitlement with which to buy votes?

...This bailout hasn’t happened yet, but it’s being proposed as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations, and I’d be surprised if it didn’t pass. The Student Loan Forgiveness Act provides debt forgiveness to all student loan recipients who have paid 10% of their discretionary incomes toward their loans for 10 years. If the recipients go into teaching, “public service” or medicine in underserved areas, their debts will be forgiven after only 5 years of such payments.

If this becomes the new norm, what incentive will there be for future students to pay off their loans at all? The next step will “free” college education for all.

Only Hope for Bankrupt Blue States is Bailout Paid by Red States

◼ Democrats and unions have controlled California and Illinois for decades. Now they are broke and facing bankruptcy. Their only hope is a federal bailout paid for by states that have been fiscally responsible. In Obama’s second term you can bank on more union bailouts to pay back campaign support. - usactionnews.com

FEDS REFUSE TO SELL THEIR SHARES OF GM — AND THE ‘WHY’ IS QUITE INTERESTING

◼ General Motors Co. executives want the Treasury Department to sell its almost 27 percent stake in the company because, they say, the feds are hurting their image and government pay restrictions are chasing away top talent. - Becket Adams/The Blaze

But Treasury officials aren’t interested in selling because it would mean posting a multibillion dollar loss during an election year, the Wall Street Journal reports.

◼ U.S. Balks at GM Plan - Government Is Reluctant to Sell Auto Stake at a Huge Loss
◼ General Motors pushing U.S. to sell stake: report - Market Watch

Paul Ryan: QE3 is a bailout for Obama

◼ Rep. Ryan: New Fed policy a ‘bailout’ for Obama economy - Peter Schroeder/The Hill

Speaking at a campaign event in Oldsmar, Fla., Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate lambasted the Fed's recent decision to try and do more to boost the economy as "sugar high economics."

"We don't need synthetic money creation. We need economic growth. We want wealth creation," he said. "We don't want to print money. We want opportunity and growth.”

◼ There has been no end of distracting topics for the media to focus on over the last week, but under the covers, the economy is still there and the cliff lying ahead of us hasn’t gone away. - Jazz Shaw/HotAir

Michael Moore: "No, Obama Didn't Save Detroit"

Despite Jennifer Granholm's DNC claims:


__________________◼ For several years the left and their media minions have claimed that by bailing out Chrysler and General Motors, President Obama saved Detroit. - Noel Sheppard/Newsbusters

On Friday, the perilously liberal schlockumentarian Michael Moore debunked this in ◼ an article at the Huffington Post astonishingly saying, "No, he didn't."

"Last week, I said on the HuffPost Live webcast that we had all better start practicing how to say 'President Romney' because, living in Michigan, I can tell you that there's trouble here on the two peninsulas...One recent poll here showed Romney leading Obama by four points! How can that be? Didn't Obama save Detroit?"

Moore answered his own question, "No, he didn't. He saved General Motors and Chrysler."

"'...Detroit' (and Flint and Pontiac and Saginaw)," continued Moore, "are not defined by the global corporations who suck our towns dry and then split town to make more money elsewhere (except, of course, they continued to design and built crap cars, so eventually they didn't make the money at all). These cities in Michigan are about the people who live here, and in the process of 'saving Detroit,' Mr. Obama had to fire thousands of these people, and reduce the benefits and pensions of those who were left."

Inconvenient truths the Obama-loving media don't want the public to know. But Moore wasn't finished.

"There's a lot of pissed off people in Michigan (and Wisconsin and Ohio), people who weren't saved even though the corporation was. I'm just stating a fact, and those of you who don't live here should know this."

Actually, those that don't live in these areas would know this if America had an honest media.

◼ Democrats Double Down on Auto Bailout, but Michael Moore Says Obama Didn’t Save Detroit - Matt Vespa/HotAir's Green Room

...Obama and the Democrats need to stop saying “I am GM, hear me roar” because the facts simply don’t add up. Yes, GM’s doors maybe open, but the company is drowning in debt. It’s trading in the low 20s on the Dow Jones, which is indicative that the bailout from American taxpayers hasn’t been paid back in full....

GM goes from bad to worse despite Obama bailout

◼ Obama talks about the auto bailout frequently, since it's one of the few things in his record that gets positive responses in the polls. But he's probably wise to avoid probing questions, since the GM bailout is not at all the success he claims. - Michael Barone/Washington Examiner

..."GM is going from bad to worse," reads the headline on Automotive News Editor-in-Chief Keith Crain's analysis. That's certainly true of its stock price....

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that GM is bleeding money because of decisions made by a management eager to please its political masters -- and by the terms of the bankruptcy arranged by Obama car czars Ron Bloom and Steven Rattner.

Rattner himself admitted late last year, in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club, that "We should have asked the [United Auto Workers] to do a bit more. We did not ask any UAW member to take a cut in their pay." Nonunion employees of GM spin-off Delphi lost their pensions. UAW members didn't.

The UAW got its political payoff. And GM, according to Forbes writer Louis Woodhill, is headed to bankruptcy again.

‘Abysmal Failure’

◼ That’s how the 2008 TARP bailout is described by Neal Barofsky, the former special inspector general (“SIGTARP”) who was responsible for investigating how the funds were spent. - The Other McCain

Did you know, for example, that the Treasury Department still owns 61% of the “too-big-to-fail” insurance giant AIG, and that bailout recipients still owe taxpayers more than $100 billion?

Those are a few of the unpleasant facts Barofsky details in his new book, ◼ Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.

◼ TARP Was Even Worse Than You Think: “An Abysmal Failure,” Barofsky Says - Aaron Task/Daily Ticker

One Hundred Million Dollar Penny

BAILOUT: Gov't Motors offers to buy back Chevy Volts

◼ CEO Dan Akerson insisted that the cars are safe, but said the company will purchase the Volts because it wants to keep customers happy. Three fires have broken out in Volts after side-impact crash tests done by the federal government. - AP

Powerful Wall Street Executive Takes U.S. Government And Federal Reserve To Court

◼ The government is not empowered to trample shareholder and property rights even in the midst of a financial emergency. So says the legal representative for Hank Greenberg, former head of AIG, and among the most powerful and influential figures on Wall Street for several decades. - Ulsterman

At the crux of the Greenberg lawsuit is the contention that the U.S. government used the AIG bailout as a sort of taxpayer-funded money laundering institution once the government took an 80% stake in the multi-national insurance giant, a scenario Greenberg describes as “backdoor bailouts” that, according to the suit, amounted to over $100 billion dollars – allowing the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve to funnel bailout funds to goverment-approved institutions with little to no oversight or accountability.

Rather than granting AIG the same access to liquidity assistance that it granted to numerous other institutions, including various foreign companies, the government instead chose to use the difficulties faced by AIG to implement a takeover of the company without just compensation.

◼ AIG's Greenberg sues U.S. for $25 billion - Chicago Tribune
◼ Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, the longtime former chief executive of American International Group Inc., launched a legal challenge to the government's 2008 takeover of AIG, alleging the move was unconstitutional. - Wall St. Journal
◼ Hank Greenberg Is Suing The Government Over The Takeover Of AIG And Wants $25 BILLION In Damages - Business Insider

Senate Democrats Push for $35 Billion States Bailout, Will Funnel $95 Million to Democrat Campaign Coffers

Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement blasting a Senate Democrat plan to spend $35 billion to bail out state and local governments: "This is like a horror story with endless sequels: 'The Return of the States Bailout'. States already got $145 billion in the original Obama 'stimulus' in 2009, and another $26.1 billion in August 2010. Now, the Obama economic recovery has been so weak that states that refuse to clean their fiscal houses are still facing a $103 billion shortfall for this fiscal year as revenues fail to recover, and so Senate Democrats want another $35 billion.

"Senate Democrats project their plan will prop up 400,000 teachers' jobs with $30 billion of the funding for that purpose. When you do the math, if you conservatively assumed only half them were unionized, with average contributions to state, local, and national unions combined about $475, it works out to a $95 million political slush fund to help Democrats, including Barack Obama, get elected.

"This plan to borrow-print-and-spend another $35 billion for the states is not about creating jobs. It won't create jobs. It's about propping up government worker unions, and funneling $95 million to help Democrats' ailing campaign to get reelected. It is hard to think of a greater waste of taxpayer resources."

◼ Democrats Push for $35 Billion Public Sector Union Bailout - NetRightDaily

Ford TV Ad Slams Obama Auto Bailouts

◼ His name is Chris. After he sits down the "reporters" bark "Chris, Chris." One asks him to explain why "was buying American important to you." Sitting and looking sincere and serious, Chris says: "I wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That's what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta' pick yourself up and go back to work. Ford is that company for me."

A Ford spokeswoman confirmed that Chris is an actual Ford owner and that those are his real words (the ad series is all unscripted). - U.S. News & World Report

Gangster Government at Treasury?

◼ Can the Treasury Exempt its Own Companies from Tax? - The $45 Billion GM NOL Carryforward - J. Mark Ramseyer and Eric B. Rasmusen
◼ Gangster Government at Treasury? - Michael Barone/Washington Examiner

Obama hopes to change views on auto industry bailout

◼ Obama hopes to change views on auto industry bailout - Brian Hughes/Washington Examiner

President Obama is hoping to change voters' views of his controversial bailout of the auto industry and turn his own political liability against Republicans amid signs that U.S. automakers are rebounding.
At the height of the bailout rage -- when the government pumped billions of dollars into General Motors and Chrysler despite a Republican outcry -- it would have been difficult for liberals to craft a winning political message defending big-government spending.

But now that Chrysler has repaid its $5.1 billion loans six years early, Obama is traveling to one of the company's plants in the battleground state of Ohio this week to make the case that the bailout was good for the auto industry and the ailing American economy.

For the White House, the improving auto industry offers an opportunity to rebrand massive government spending and the president's agenda in a positive light. Administration officials see the effort as a cornerstone of the president's re-election bid, particularly in the Rust Belt and other states with deep stakes in the auto industry.